Archives Unbound:
African American Studies

Archives Unbound: African American Studies

This is an interdisciplinary academic collection devoted to the study of the history, culture, and politics of African Americans, covering the tumultuous period from 1900 to present day. Researchers can explore a breadth of experiences ranging from U.S. nation-building in Liberia to Freedom Riders, the Rastafari movement, and FBI surveillance.

Race Relations

Federal Surveillance of African Americans, 1920-1984 - Between the early 1920s and early 1980s, the Justice Department and its Federal Bureau of Investigation engaged in widespread investigation of those deemed politically suspect. Prominent among the targets of this sometimes coordinated, sometimes independent surveillance were aliens, members of various protest groups, Socialists, Communists, pacifists, militant labor unionists, ethnic or racial nationalists, and outspoken opponents of the policies of the incumbent presidents.

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Race Relations, 1933-1945 - This new series contains a collection of essential materials for the study of the early development of the Civil Rights Movement—concerned with the issues of Lynching, Segregation, Race riots, and Employment discrimination. FDR assumed the presidency of a nation in which white supremacy was a significant cultural and political force. Many states denied or severely restricted voting rights to African Americans and used their political power to further diminish their status and to deny them the benefits and opportunities of society. There was constant pressure on FDR to support anti-lynching legislation. But civil rights were a stepchild of the New Deal. Bent on economic recovery and reform and having to work through powerful Southern congressmen, whose seniority placed them at the head of key congressional committees, the president hesitated to place civil rights on his agenda. FDR’s record on civil rights has been the subject of much controversy. This new collection from FDR’s Official File provides insight into his political style and presents an instructive example of how he balanced moral preference with political realities.

Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Enforcement of Federal Law in the South, 1871-1884 - This collection on law and order documents the efforts of district attorneys from southern states to uphold federal laws in the states that fought in the Confederacy and lie east of the Mississippi River. This publication includes their correspondence with the attorney general as well all other letters received by the attorney general from the states in question during that period, including the correspondence of marshals, judges, convicts, and concerned or aggrieved citizens. This publication comprises the letters and enclosures contained in the source-chronological file for various states in the South. The correspondence covers a variety of subjects connected with legal matters: Reconstruction conflicts; civil rights; voting rights; internal revenue and customs; regulation of trade, commerce, and transportation; special classes of claims involving the United States; the defense and supervision of public officers; protection of the rights and property of the United States; and other subjects. The correspondence also covers such administrative matters as the submission of statistical reports, authorizations of expenditures, retention of assistant counsel, and the conduct of litigation.

The Minority Voter, Election of 1936 and the Good Neighbor League - This collection is designed as a case study of minority involvement in a presidential election campaign, using the 1936 Democratic Campaign as a model. The 1936 election provides an excellent example partly because of the availability of manuscript material on the Good Neighbor League, a vital force in helping make minorities part of the Roosevelt coalition in 1936. Through recruitment and publicity, the League was one means Democrats used to attract minority voters to Roosevelt. Their activities show that bringing together such a coalition was not a chance occurrence, but a well-planned political move whose basic premise was the New Deal legislative program. Minorities proved by their participation that they would be a significant influence in elections to come.