Civil Rights in North Carolina:

A Bibliography for Teachers

 

General background information and teaching materials about civil rights are plentiful. Resources specifically about civil rights in North Carolina, however, are less abundant. The goal of this bibliography is to provide a list of those resources in a variety of formats. Focusing in the classroom on North Carolinians’ role in civil rights will not only teach students about the significant activists and events in the state’s history but also help them understand how world and national affairs affect state and local communities, and vice versa. It will also illustrate how average North Carolinians have influenced history, as students themselves can shape the future. As in the rest of the workshop and associated exhibit, African Americans and American Indians are the focus of this guide, but other groups that have faced discrimination in the state are included as well.

Browsing Areas

Looking through books on a library shelf can be a convenient way to find materials. To browse for civil rights–related books, look in the following areas:

 

Topic	Library of Congress call numbers	Dewey call numbers
American Indians	E51-99	970
African Americans	E184.5-185	973
U.S. ethnic/social groups	E184-185	305
Political science	JC571-628	324
Civil rights law	K3236-3268, KF4700	323, 342
History of the southeastern U.S.	F206-220	975
North Carolina history	F251-265	975.6

 

In bookstores, civil rights materials can be found in the African American studies, women’s history, American history, and North Carolina/local interest sections.

 

General Reference Materials

Although these resources are not specific to North Carolina, they give an overall view of civil rights in the United States, past and present, to help place the state’s history into a larger context. These materials can be found in the reference section of many public and school libraries and bookstores, and can be obtained through interlibrary loan.

 

ABC-Clio Companions to Key Issues in American History and Life series. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

Four books in this series focus on civil rights history and current issues for different groups. Each book offers brief entries on leading figures and organizations, laws, issues, events, publications, and court decisions, and includes a chronology and an extensive bibliography.

·       Frost-Knappman, Elizabeth. The ABC-CLIO Companion to Women’s Progress in America. 1994.

·       Grossman, Mark. The ABC-CLIO Companion to the Civil Rights Movement. 1993.

·       _____________. The ABC-CLIO Companion to the Native American Rights Movement. 1998.

·       Pelka, Fred. The ABC-CLIO Companion to the Disability Rights Movement. 1997.

 

Bradley, David, and Shelley Fisher Fishkin, eds. The Encyclopedia of Civil Rights in America. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1998.

This three-volume encyclopedia takes a broad view of civil rights and includes 683 entries about legal and political issues, events, politicians, court cases, laws and government policies, groups affected by civil rights discrimination, and activists. Its eight appendixes include the text of government documents, a table of court cases, a time line from 1619 to 1997, a filmography, a bibliography, and lists of museums and organizations.

 

Carson, Clayborne, et al, eds. The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle, 1954–1990. New York: Viking, 1991.

Primary sources—letters, speeches, interviews, essays, court decisions, and more—tell the history of the African American Civil Rights movement in this volume. It is part of a larger project which includes two documentary film series, Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954–1965, and Eyes on the Prize: American at the Racial Crossroads, 1965–1985, as well as numerous publications.

 

Gottheimer, Josh, ed. Ripples of Hope: Great American Civil Rights Speeches. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2003.

Readers can study ninety-six speeches important to American civil rights in this reference book. The speeches, from 1798 to 1998, are divided into four time periods and cover the African American, women’s, Hispanic American, Asian American, and gay rights movements. A brief biography of each activist precedes his/her speech.

 

Lowery, Charles D., and John F. Marszalek, eds. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Civil Rights: From Emancipation to the Twenty-first Century. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003.

This two-volume reference work includes entries on individuals, organizations, events, concepts, laws, and court cases important to the topic of African American civil rights. A chronology from 1859 to 2003, a bibliography, and the text of 120 primary documents including speeches, court cases, writings, and laws are included in volume 2.

 

Books

These materials can be found in many public libraries and bookstores and some school libraries, and can be obtained through interlibrary loan.

 

Bermanzohn, Sally Avery. Through Survivors' Eyes: From the Sixties to the Greensboro Massacre. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2003.

For her doctoral dissertation, Bermanzohn interviewed all the survivors of a Ku Klux Klan/Nazi attack on civil rights demonstrators in Greensboro in 1979 (she is one of the survivors). For this book, the author, a professor of politics at Brooklyn College, CUNY, chose six of those survivors to narrate their own experiences as activists, and the oral histories together recount the fateful day in Greensboro, making for a personal, powerful recollection of a day and an era.

 

Carson, Clayborne. In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Clayborne, a history professor at Stanford University at the time of the book’s publication (originally 1981), offers readers a detailed and compelling look into the history of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC, which formed in Greensboro in 1960, was a significant force in the Civil Rights movement.

 

Cecelski, David S. Along Freedom Road: Hyde County, North Carolina, and the Fate of Black Schools in the South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.

Cecelski, a prominent North Carolina historian, relates the 1968–69 school boycott in Hyde County in which demonstrators protested an integration plan that would eliminate historically African American schools.

 

Cecelski, David S., and Timothy B. Tyson, eds. Democracy Betrayed: The Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and Its Legacy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

This collection of essays by prominent historians commemorated the centennial of the 1898 Wilmington race riot. The scholars discuss the causes and outcomes—both short and long term—of the event.

 

Chafe, William H. Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.

Chafe, a history professor at Duke University and codirector of the university’s Center for the Study of Civil Rights at the time of the book’s publication, provides a thoughtful and readable look into the Civil Rights movement in Greensboro.

 

Delany, Sarah L, and A. Elizabeth Delany. Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years. New York: Dell Publishing, 1993.

These sisters from North Carolina tell their engaging stories of breaking racial and gender barriers throughout their long lives. In the process, they offer personal, moving accounts of what life was like for African Americans during the Jim Crow era, the Civil Rights movement, and beyond.

 

Ehle, John. The Free Men. New York: Harper & Row, 1965.

Ehle, a fiction and nonfiction writer, follows young activists in Chapel Hill during the Civil Rights movement. While the language is dated, this narrative offers a personal look into the experience of civil rights activists. Readers also get a good overall history and a sense of the atmosphere of North Carolina in the 1960s.

 

Haley, John H. Charles N. Hunter and Race Relations in North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987.

Haley, a history professor at the time of the book’s publication, provides a fascinating look into the life of Charles Hunter, who was born  enslaved in Raleigh but was later able to use his professions as public schoolteacher and journalist to quietly but persuasively publicize the problems of racism and urge others to join him in passive protest against it.

 

Let Us March On: Raleigh’s Journey toward Civil Rights. Raleigh: Raleigh City Museum, 2000.

This slim but important volume chronicles the experiences of Raleigh’s citizens during the Civil Rights movement through oral histories collected for the museum’s 2000 exhibition of the same name. The moving interviews are accompanied by a time line and historic photographs.

 

Mebane, Mary E. Mary: An Autobiography. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

________. Mary, Wayfarer. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

In these two volumes, Mebane chronicles her life as an African American in North Carolina from her birth in 1933 to the mid-1970s. In these engaging narratives, Mebane describes life during the Jim Crow era, her experiences as a civil rights activist, and her struggles and successes in her professional and personal life.

 

Ransby, Barbara. Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

Ransby, professor of African American studies and history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, presents this important, moving biography of Baker, an influential civil rights leader from North Carolina. Baker, an activist for fifty years, helped found SNCC and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

 

Ross, Thomas E. American Indians in North Carolina: Geographic Interpretations. Southern Pines, N.C.: Karo Hollow Press, 1999.

Ross, a geography professor at UNC–Pembroke, provides an overview of American Indian tribes in North Carolina, including historic information and maps as well as current demographic, economic, social, and geographical conditions of today’s tribes. Although now outdated (the book doesn’t include the Occaneechi as a state-recognized tribe), the work offers a good overview at the tribes of the state, past and present, essential to understanding historical and current civil rights issues.

 

Internet Sources

Brown v. Board of Education Digital Archive

http://www.lib.umich.edu/exhibits/brownarchive/gallery.html

Photos depict the highly charged public school integration in Charlotte following the Brown v. Board desegregation decision.

 

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Story: African-American Community

http://www.cmstory.org/african/default.asp

Online publications and photo albums document the history of African Americans in Mecklenburg County.

 

Greensboro Sit-Ins: Launch of a Civil Rights Movement

http://www.sitins.com

The Greensboro News and Record presents this comprehensive site on the simple act in February 1960 in a Greensboro Woolworth’s store that started the sit-in movement. The site includes interviews, articles, biographies of the main players, and a time line.

 

Race and Desegregation: West Charlotte High School

http://www.sohp.org/research/lfac/lfac_31b.html

Race and Desegregation: Asheville's Stephens-Lee High School

http://www.sohp.org/research/lfac/lfac_31c.html

These pages offer oral histories that are part of the “Listening for a Change: North Carolina Communities in Transition” project, an initiative of UNC–Chapel Hill’s Southern Oral History Program to document the state’s post–World War II history.

 

SNCC: 1960–1966

http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/

This history of SNCC includes a discussion of the organization's leaders, issues, and events. The site also provides a time line and links to related sites.

 

Voices of Civil Rights

http://www.voicesofcivilrights.org/index.html/

The cooperative Voices of Civil Rights Bus Tour is a coast-to-coast journey to collect oral histories and personal artifacts of the Civil Rights movement. Transcripts of interviews—including many from North Carolina—as well as photographs, bibliographies, and background information, are included on the Web site.

 

Documentaries

These documentaries are available as VHS tapes at some school and public libraries, or through interlibrary loan.

 

Grant, Joanne. Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker. New York: First Run/Icarus Films, 1986.

Viewers learn about Baker's important work during the Civil Rights movement through interviews and historic footage in this 63-minute video, which is appropriate for high school students. The title of the video refers to Baker’s nickname, Fundi, a Swahili word for a person who passes on skills from one generation to another.

 

Gray, Mike. Jesse Jackson: Genesis of a Journey. Research Triangle Park: University of North Carolina Center for Public Television, 1991.

This 29-minute video, which is appropriate for high school students, examines Jesse Jackson’s first involvement in the Civil Rights movement when he was a student in Greensboro. It is more, however, the history of the movement in Greensboro in the early 1960s, told through interviews (including interviews with Jackson), photographs, and film footage.

 

Field Trip Opportunities

Hours of operation and exhibition dates are subject to change. Admission is free unless noted.

 

Coastal Plain

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site

1401 National Park Drive, Manteo

Hours: Daily, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.

( 252-473-5772

http://www.nps.gov/fora/raleigh.htm

This precolonial site includes an exhibit on the freedmen’s colony.

 

Somerset Place State Historic Site

2572 Lake Shore Road, Creswell

Hours: (April through October) Monday through Saturday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.; Sunday, 1:00 to 5:00 P.M.; (November through March) Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.; Sunday, 1:00 to 4:00 P.M.

( 252-797-4560

http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/sections/hs/somerset/somerset.htm

During its eighty-year existence as one of North Carolina’s most prosperous plantations, the 100,000-acre Somerset Place (1785–1865) was home to more than three hundred enslaved men, women, and children of African descent.

 

Piedmont

Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum

U.S. 70, Sedalia

Hours: Monday through Saturday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M; Closed Sunday and most major state holidays

( 336-449-4846

http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/sections/hs/chb/chb.htm

This state historic site, showcasing the life and work of Charlotte Hawkins Brown, a pioneer in African American education and a civil rights advocate, features a visitor center, Brown’s grave site, and buildings from Palmer Memorial Institute, the school that Brown founded.

 

Greensboro Historical Museum

130 Summit Avenue, Greensboro

Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.; Sunday, 2:00 to 5:00 P.M.

( 336-373-2043

http://www.greensborohistory.org/

The Greensboro Sit-Ins, a permanent exhibit featuring four seats from the Greensboro Woolworth’s store, photographs, and a time line, recalls the civil rights protests that spread across the South in the 1960s.

 

Native American Resource Center

Old Main Building, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Pembroke

Hours: Monday through Friday, 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.

( 910-521-6282

http://www.uncp.edu/nativemuseum/

The center exhibits Indian artifacts, arts, and crafts from across North America, focusing on the Lumbee tribe. Films and research materials are available to the public.

 

Walnut Cove School

U.S. 311, north of Winston-Salem

http://www.rosenwaldschools.com/cs_walnut.html

( 336-591-5442

Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald contributed money to construct schools for African Americans across the South. Walnut Cove School, built in 1921 and now a community center, is one of the best preserved Rosenwald schools remaining in the South.

 

And coming soon…

International Civil Rights Center and Museum

South Elm Street, Greensboro

http://www.sitinmovement.org/default.asp

This museum will be housed in a former Woolworth’s building, the site of the 1960 sit-in that launched the sit-in movement across the South.

 

Mountains

Museum of the Cherokee Indian

U.S. 441 and Drama Road, Cherokee

Hours: daily 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. excluding major holidays; extended summer hours, Memorial Day to Labor Day,
9:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. Monday through Saturday and 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. on Sunday

Fee: Adults, $9; children 6–14 $6; children under 6, free; group rates available

( 828-497-3481

http://www.cherokeemuseum.org/

Completely renovated in 1998, this museum uses high-tech effects and an extensive artifact collection to tell the story of the Cherokee people.

 

For more field trip ideas, see the following travel guides:

·        A Traveler’s Guide to the Civil Rights Movement, by Jim Carrier (Orlando: Harcourt, 2004).

·        The Rich Heritage of African Americans in North Carolina (Raleigh: North Carolina Departments of Commerce and Cultural Resources, 2000).

 

Teaching Resources

Channing, Steven A. We the People. Durham: Video Dialog, 1989. With teacher’s guide.

Students in grades 8+ can examine the lives of North Carolinians who fought for constitutional change, including people who opposed the Civil War and advocates for women's voting rights and the Civil Rights Act in this 14-minute video. Documentary footage of the first 1960 Greensboro sit-in and reenactments of other historic events relate the state’s struggles for civil rights for all. Available in many school libraries or by loan through the North Carolina Museum of History (the museum provides a teacher’s guide with the loan).

 

Lesson Plans: Civil Rights. LEARN NC. http://www.learnnc.org/lessons/search?phrase=civil+rights.

LEARN NC, an online program of the UNC–Chapel Hill School of Education, provides sixty-one lesson plans—or links to other organizations’ lessons—on civil rights for a variety of grade levels. While not all of the lessons are North Carolina related, the North Carolina curriculum alignment is specified for each one.

 

Tar Heel Junior Historian 44. no. 1 (Fall 2004). With teacher’s supplement.

This issue of the Tar Heel Junior Historian magazine includes eleven articles, a time line, and two classroom activities on civil rights in North Carolina, covering 1830 to 1980. The accompanying teacher’s supplement has four lesson plans for a range of grades and a list of related resources. The magazine is written for students in grades 4 through 12 but also provides high-quality background information for educators. Available in many school libraries or through the North Carolina Museum of History.