Civil Rights Movements & the Law

This research guide brings together a variety of resources for researching issues related to policing and racial injustice. General research databases and reference resources for researching criminal justice topics generally are also listed. The databases in the General Research section, can be particularly helpful in locating periodical articles, working papers and other publications. Other sections of this guide focus on more specific issues such as police tactics and use of force; police/community relations, community policing and community activism; police oversight/accountability, and efforts/proposals to reform, defund and abolish police departments. Note: some of the resources (primarily books) listed under a particular topic (e.g. police tactics) may also contain content that address other topics such as police oversight. The guide has a separate section devoted to law enforcement and racial justice issues in Minnesota. It also includes a section with useful links to federal government publications and resources for researching law enforcement and racial justice issues in other states. This guide was compiled in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd in May 2020 and the global outrage and protest that followed. Links related to the response of the University of Minnesota Law School, (official statements, a panel discussion webinar, and the George Floyd Memorial Scholarship in Law) can be found below.

Pro Bono Net is a national nonprofit organization. We work to bring the power of the law to all by building cutting-edge digital tools and fostering collaborations with the nation’s leading civil legal organizations.

This guide provides an overview of research strategies and resources on the topic of Critical Race Theory at the UNC School of Law.

The intentions of this guide are to provide the researcher with helpful tips, and suggested print and electronic resources about women involved in the Civil Rights movement in the United States.

This guide will assist you in finding online and print resources on civil rights.

ChangeLab is a racial justice think tank based in Seattle, WA. We promote cross-sectoral analysis of the political, economic, cultural and ideological dimensions of race and racism in the United States, with a particular focus on Asian Americans.

On May 31 and June 1, 1921, mobs of white residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes and businesses in the city's Greenwood District, also known as Black Wall Street. The attacks from the ground and private aircraft killed an unknown number of Black people, estimated to be between 75 and 300, and injured and displaced hundreds more. The massacre was largely undiscussed in local, state, and national histories, even after a state commission on the event published its final report in 2001 but gained increased public awareness when it was featured in the HBO series Watchmen in 2019 and Lovecraft Country in 2020.

This guide is meant to serve as a jumping-off point for students and faculty to gain a better understanding of the events related to Mike Brown's death and the subsequent protests and unrest in Ferguson. It also collects resources that may be used by UA instructors to teach Ferguson and related topics in their courses. We will try to keep this guide as up-to-date as we can.

Community organizers Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi used the social media hashtag #BlackLivesMatter after the 2012 acquittal of George Zimmerman, the killer of Trayvon Martin, a 17- year-old Florida teen, and set off a movement to address the ongoing violence and killings of Black men, women and children at the hands of police (law enforcement) and vigilantes. Similar to the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement brought attention to how Black lives have been deprived of their basic human rights and dignity. The movement also challenges people to address issues of racism and inequality around the world. The BLM movement also helped inspire another related but equally important movement, the #SayHerName campaign. This campaign was started in 2014 by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) and Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies (CISPS). The #SayHerName campaign brings awareness to the state violence that is visited upon Black women and girls. The intention of this guide is to provide information resources related to the BLM movement and its founding. Resources have been placed in various topics or categories. It goes without saying that many titles could have been placed in more than one category. As with most online library guides new resources or categories may be added. Please revisit this site for updates. ~ Kofi Acree, Director, John Henrik Clarke Africana Library

This guide is meant to serve as a jumping-off point for students and faculty to gain a better understanding of the events related to the Black Lives Matter movement, including the death of unarmed black Americans by police and the subsequent protests. We will try to keep this guide as up-to-date as we can.

"No one becomes 'not racist,' despite a tendency by Americans to identify themselves that way. We can only strive to be 'antiracist' on a daily basis, to continually rededicate ourselves to the lifelong task of overcoming our country’s racist heritage." Ibram X. Kendi, Further Reading: An Antiracist Reading List, The New York Times, May 29, 2019

CCBC Library

Our goal is to ensure that our colleagues understand why #BlackLivesMatter (and address the social response to the notion of All Lives Matter), focus on social justice, and create an atmosphere of civil discussion on race.

Black and Indigenous struggle are inextricably linked, and many of our comrades are in fact both Black and Indigenous. Historically and in the present day, Black people have been the … Continue reading Black Liberation

Documenting the impact of COVID-19 on Black America.

This guide will help users learn more about antiracism and how to become antiracism allies and accomplices. It also includes support and self-care resources for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). You may be prompted to enter your Texas A&M University credentials to gain access to certain materials.

Experts share resources, guidance, tools and more.

This document is intended to serve as a resource to white people and parents to deepen our anti-racism work. If you haven’t engaged in anti-racism work in the past, start now. Feel free to circulate this document on social media and with your friends, family, and colleagues

This page is intended to serve as a resource to people and parents to deepen our anti-racism work. If you haven’t engaged in anti-racism work in the past, start now. Feel free to circulate this document on social media and with your friends, family and colleagues. Initially compiled by Sarah Sophie Flicker, Alyssa Klein (May 2020) and updated by The University Office for Diversity & Inclusion

A starting point for Penn Carey Law community members interested in resources for self-education on anti-racism.

Anti-racist syllabus by Ibram X. Kendi: beginning

Anti-Asian racism and violent attacks on Asian elderly have only increased in recent months. Since COVID-19 became news in the United States, hate speech and violence against the AAPI community has run rampant. In February 2021, attacks, particularly on elderly Asian Americans, have spiked. Unfortunately, many of these

The guide is divided into 5 different categories. Each category is designed to give the researcher ideas on how to track down material relating to Angela Davis and her teachings. In the first section Davis gives an interview while in prision in 1972. The full interview can be seen on The Black Power Mixtape, 1967-1975.

Anti-Racist Resources This is a list of resources to begin your anti-racist work. This list will be continously updated. Name of Resource,Type of Resource,Link,Notes Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: Mentoring a New Generation of Activists,Article,

Abolish Police, ICE, and Prisons have become more popular demands in recent years but abolition is a movement with a long history. From Black abolitionists who fought and resisted slavery … Continue reading Abolition

Longstanding inequalities have led to the current wave of protests.

Research has extensively documented the differences between the Black and white experience in the US, from wealth and education to incarceration.

"An in-depth look at how U.S. Latino advocacy groups are using ethnoracial demographic projections to bring about political change in the present. For years, newspaper headlines, partisan speeches, academic research, and even comedy routines have communicated that the United States is undergoing a profound demographic transformation--one that will purportedly change the "face" of the country in a matter of decades. But the so-called browning of America, sociologist Michael Rodrguez-Muiz contends, has less to do with the complexion of growing populations than with past and present struggles shaping how demographic trends are popularly imagined and experienced. Offering an original and timely window into these struggles, Figures of the Future explores the population politics of national Latino civil rights groups. Based on eight years of ethnographic and qualitative research, spanning both the Obama and Trump administrations, this book investigates how several of the most prominent of these organizations--including UnidosUS (formerly NCLR), the League of United Latin American Citizens, and Voto Latino--have mobilized demographic data about the Latino population in dogged pursuit of political recognition and influence. In census promotions, get-out-the-vote campaigns, and policy advocacy, this knowledge has been infused with meaning, variously serving as future-oriented sources of inspiration, emblems for identification, and weapons for contestation. At the same time, Rodrguez-Muiz considers why these political actors have struggled to translate this demographic growth into tangible political gain and how concerns about white backlash have affected how they forecast demographic futures. Figures of the Future looks closely at the politics surrounding ethnoracial demographic changes and their rising influence in U.S. public debate and discourse."--Amazon.com.

"Against the backdrop of America's escalating urban rebellions in the 1960s, an unexpected cohort of New York radicals unleashed a series of urban guerrilla actions against the city's racist policies and contempt for the poor. Their dramatic flair, uncompromising vision, and skillful ability to link local problems to international crises riveted the media, alarmed New York's political class, and challenged nationwide perceptions of civil rights and black power protest. The group called itself the Young Lords. [The author] utiliz[es] oral histories, archival records, and an enormous cache of police records released only after a decade-long Freedom of Information Law request and subsequent court battle ... [for this] account of the Young Lords, from their roots as a street gang to their rise and fall as a political organization"--

"The "yellow peril" is one of the most long-standing and pervasive racist ideas in Western culture--indeed, this book traces its history to the Enlightenment era. Yet while Fu Manchu evokes a fading historical memory, yellow peril ideology persists, animating, for example, campaign commercials from the 2012 presidential election. Yellow Peril! is the first comprehensive repository of anti-Asian images and writing, pop culture artifacts and political polemic. Written by two leading scholars and replete with paintings, photographs and images drawn from dime novels, posters, comics, theatrical productions, movies, polemical and pseudo-scholarly literature, and other pop culture ephemera, this book is both a unique and fascinating archive and a modern analysis of this crucial historical formation"--