February is African American History Month, and, as the Library of Congress site notes, it's an area of history that should be incorporated into all discussions about American history. The Library of Congress listened to its own advice and created this most useful site to help students, teachers, and others to do just that. Visitors can read about a number of notable African Americans, including...

The Library of Congress’s “African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship” exhibition celebrates African American history over nine time periods, ranging from 18th century slavery to the Civil Rights era. This thorough collection includes over 240 books, government documents, maps, musical scores, films, and plays, supplemented with relevant historical explanations and contexts. Viewers...

A champion of human rights, as well as a brilliant orator and author, Frederick Douglass was one of the most influential leaders of social reform during the nineteenth century. This online exhibit, provided by the National Park Service's Museum Management Program as part of its American Visionaries series, chronicles the history of Douglass, his ideas, and his influence. The site features a time...

Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier fifty years ago, but that was not his only contribution to the civil rights struggle in America. To illustrate Robinson's continuing activism in the civil rights struggle, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has recently made available (as part of its Teaching with Documents series) a new site that includes nine documents (letters...

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute takes its visitors on a journey moving from the nation's segregation era to the birth of the Civil Rights Movement. The Institute's historic galleries capture the spirit and courage of countless individuals who dared to confront the "bigotry and racial discrimination of American society." This site provides a range of exhibitions (both permanent and...

When Edgar Renteria lined a soft single past Charles Nagy, between Tony Fernandez and Omar Vizquel, and in front of Marquis Grissom, to give the Florida Marlins their first World Series Championship recently, keen observers could easily see just how multi-national the National Pastime had become; these developments can be traced directly back to Jackie Robinson. The Library of Congress has...

On May 12, 2009, the U.S. Congress authorized a national initiative by passing the Civil Rights History Project Act of 2009. This law directs the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture to conduct a survey of existing oral history collections with reference to the Civil Rights Movement. This site brings together a range of...

While there are numerous civil rights oral history projects, there are few organized around the remembrances and memories of persons from a particular geographic locale. This collection of eight oral history interviews, conducted by Rebecca Nappi, was created in part by the Washington State University Library in collaboration with the Spokane Spokesman-Review. Visitors to the site can listen to...

The Wisconsin Historical Society has one of the nation’s richest collections of items documenting the Civil Rights movement, particularly as they relate to the 1964 Freedom Summer Project. Visitors to the site can look over the Historical Essay to get started, as it contains a short summary of the importance of these events, then move on to Browse Related Topics. Here, visitors will find links to...

While the integration of African-Americans into the world of professional sports is very well-documented, quite a bit less is known about the various African-American pioneers in the world of collegiate athletics. Helping fill this gap is a nice online exhibit dedicated to exploring the various individuals who led the way in this arena at the University of Wisconsin from the years 1900 to 1970....