The collections

The thematic focus of the CCC project is "the Long Civil Rights Movement (LCRM) in North Carolina." Collections were chosen for inclusion in the project based on the strength of materials related to this thematic focus. The concept of the LCRM seeks to broaden and deepen the traditional understanding of the civil rights movement as a 1960s-era American phenomenon; it stretches the movement's timeline to include its origins and its aftermath (1930-1980s), and connects it with contemporary controversies such as school resegregation, environmental and economic justice, with related efforts for social justice such as the women's and gay rights movements.

• Full list of collections
• Highlights
• Follow digitization progress

Highlights

• Duke University Libraries

  • The The Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South project recorded first person testimonies by African Americans who lived during the age of legal segregation in the American South, from the 1890s to the 1950s. The project was directed by historians associated with Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies. The oral histories preserved in Behind the Veiloffer researchers an unparalleled view of life in the Jim Crow South, capturing both the impact of legalized discrimination and the determination of those who resisted oppression. Behind the Veil focuses on communities, documenting all aspects of black life including efforts to build black institutions, social groups and events, education, and family life. This collection provides rich documentary evidence of the diversity of black life during the Jim Crow era.
  • The Basil Lee Whitener Papers, 1889-1968 contain the office files of Congressman Whitener when he was the U.S. Representative for the Eleventh District and Tenth District of North Carolina (1957-1968). Whitener's views on many national and state issues are revealed within the collection. He was opposed to civil rights legislation, deficit spending, foreign aid spending, and the proliferation of domestic and social programs. His papers document the rise of the New Right in North Carolina.

• North Carolina Central University Libraries

  • The James E. Shepard Papers, 1909-1947 focus on the career of NCCU's founder and a highly influential and nationally significant advocate for African American higher education.
  • With game programs, photographs, and biographical information, the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association Records, 1940-2006 provide a window into student life at HBCUs during the LCRM. The CIAA is the premiere athletic association among HBCUs and includes institutions in the mid-Atlantic area; its basketball tournament draws more than 100,000 spectators each year. NCCU was a member of the CIAA between 1928 and 2010.
  • The Floyd B. McKissick Papers, 1940s-1980s document the LCRM in Durham and Soul City, a town owned and operated by African Americans, and are critical for the study of legal and economic remedies to civil rights inequities. The collection reflects McKissick's work with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the NAACP, the development of Soul City, and his work with the Republican Party.

• North Carolina State University Libraries

  • The Society of Afro-American Culture Records, 1968-1984 document the campus organization composed of both students and faculty who promoted African American identities and culture and supported African Americans' advancement within the university.
  • The Office for Equal Opportunity and Equity Records contain materials related to the administrative functions of NCSU's Affirmative Action Office (later the Office for Equal Opportunity and Equity). The bulk of the material involves efforts by North Carolina State University to comply with federal statutory and regulatory requirements prohibiting discrimination, creating affirmative action plans, and recruiting African American faculty and students. It also includes documentation on the development of the Pre-College Program for Minorities and Women in Mathematics and Science and the annual seminars on race conducted by civil rights activist C. T. Vivian for university administrators, faculty, and staff.
  • The North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service has been operated by NCSU since the Smith-Lever Act of 1914, which authorized land-grant colleges to join with the USDA in order to expand demonstration services. The Extension and Community Association Records document the segregation and eventual integration of the agricultural extension and demonstration activities for African Americans. The Josephine Scott Hudson Papers in part document Cassius Rex Hudson, the first extension agent in North Carolina to head programs for African Americans.
  • The William Dallas Herring Papers, 1954-1986. William Dallas Herring was a longtime member of the North Carolina Board of Education and was instrumental in the establishment of the state's community college system, including records relating to the Pearsall Committee.

• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries

  • The Frank Porter Graham Papers, 1908-1990 offer significant insight into the early decades of the LCRM in North Carolina. As president of the state's university system and later a politician and United Nations official, Graham often found himself at the center of debates on social, racial, and economic inequality. During a forty-year period, hundreds of correspondents from all over North Carolina, the nation, and the world solicited, praised, and criticized Graham's opinions and actions and urged his participation in and endorsement of innumerable causes.
  • The North Carolina Fund Records, 1962-1971 document the late decades of the LCRM. The Fund was a non-profit corporation that sought and provided funding to combat poverty in rural and urban North Carolina between 1963 and 1968. The collection includes sixty field recordings made for brief radio spots produced in 1967. The interviews with anti-poverty volunteer workers and with impoverished men and women across North Carolina give voice to individuals struggling with economic injustice. The "Gardner File" series in the N.C. Fund Records provide context for the political climate during the nation's War on Poverty. Congressman James Gardner was one of many who opposed the activities of the Fund and attacked its leaders on the grounds that they were conducting inappropriate political activities while spending federal dollars.

Digitization progress

Througout the lifecycle of the project, you will be able to see the progress of each collection's digitization here. Digital materials usually become available in Search TRLN and on home institutions' websites (via links in the collections' finding aids) within several months of digitization.

The data below is updated each Friday.

How did we make these charts?