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...

The late Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. was arguably the most influential justice of the Supreme Court in the 20th century, and weighed in with nearly 1600 opinions during his 34 years on the Court. To pay tribute to his many accomplishments, the extended Brennan family and New York University presented Justice Brennan with their gift of the Brennan Center in 1995. The central mission of the...

Cincinnati, Ohio gained national attention in April 2001 when Police Officer Stephen Roach shot unarmed 19-year old Timothy Thomas in an alley after Thomas fled while Roach was trying to arrest him on 14 misdemeanor warrants. At that time, Thomas was the 15th African American killed by Cincinnati police since 1995. The shooting ignited protests and four days of riots. Three weeks prior to the...

The Civil Rights Center of the US Department of Labor (DOL) was created to assist the DOL in developing, administering, and enforcing departmental policies, practices, and procedures, as well as US laws detailing the prohibition of discrimination on a variety of levels. The site contains the full-text of all statutes enforced by the Civil Rights Center as well as the Code of Federal Regulations...

The Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) has been collecting vast swaths of data about "key education and civil rights issues" in schools around the country every other year since 1968. The results are available on this fact-filled website, which will come as a boon to data lovers, education researchers, teachers, principals, and others with an interest in how the United States has faired in its...

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...

Since September 11, 2001 the U.S. government has been actively searching for ways to improve surveillance at airports and U.S. borders. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is concerned that biometric technologies are being promoted as the silver bullet when very little independent, objective scientific testing of biometrics has been done. This evolving website discusses what is known and raises...

Founded in 1991, the Institute for Justice is concerned with protecting civil liberties around the United States, and is currently involved in a number of projects, including investigating the use and application of eminent domain laws and the issue of free speech in the state of Washington. The Institute's homepage provides a good place to start exploring the content offered within their site, as...

Jo Freeman, a well-known feminist scholar, activist, author, speaker, and lawyer, recently launched this new site consisting of works by and about her. The site contains a portion of Freeman's numerous scholarly and journalistic articles, including "The Feminist Movement," "Women in Society," "Women, Law and Public Policy," and "Social Protests in the Sixties." The site also contains a photo...