African American Odyssey Introduction | Overview | Object List | Search
The Civil Rights Era
Sit-ins, Freedom Rides, and Demonstrations
We Shall Overcome
"We Shall Overcome" seems to have first been sung by striking tobacco workers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1945. In the 1960s the song became the all-but-official anthem of the civil rights movement.
Its first separate publication, on exhibit here, gives credit of authorship to, among others, Silphia Horton of the Highlander Folk School, who learned the song from the tobacco workers, and Pete Seeger, who helped to popularize the song and gentrified its title from "We Will Overcome."
Silphia Horton, Frank Hamilton, Guy Carawan, and Pete Seeger. "We Shall Overcome."
New York: Ludlow Music, Inc., 1963.
Music Division. (9-19)
Courtesy of Ludlow Music, Inc., 11 West 19th Street New York, NY 10011
Civil Rights
Danny Lyon (b. 1942)
Drinking Fountains in the Dougherty
County Courthouse,
Albany, Georgia, ca. 1963
Danny Lyon was the first staff photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a national group of college students who joined together after the first sit-in by four African American college students at a North Carolina lunch counter. From 1963 to 1964, Lyon traveled the South and Mid-Atlantic regions capturing telling moments like these. These photographs are part of a limited edition portfolio that Lyon produced to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the civil rights struggle.
/ / Activists & ReformersCesar Chavez
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This poster calls for Americans to stop buying lettuce and grapes in support of the United Farm Workers
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/ / Cesar Chavez Organizes Agricultural Workers
In 1965, Chavez and Huerta agreed to honor a walkout by farm workers in Delano, California, who were in another union, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee. Workers in the NFWA (formed by Chavez and Huerta) were asked not to work for the Delano grape growers. This strike was called a huelga (pronounced WELL-guh) in Spanish. In 1966, the National Farm Workers Association joined with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), later renamed the United Farm Workers. How long do you think the 1965 strike lasted?
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‘
School building in
Louisa County, Virginia (20.4)
[Digital ID# ppmsca-#05513]
Separate and Unequal
The 1896 court ruling in Plessy v Ferguson ushered in an era of "separate but equal" facilities and treatment for blacks and whites. In the area of education, it was felt that the children of former slaves would be better served if they attended their own schools and in their own communities. These images of schools for black students show that facilities were separate but never equal.
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Display Images with Neighboring Call Numbers
TITLE:New school and community center. Tygart Valley Homesteads, West Virginia
CALL NUMBER:LC-USF34- 060083-D [P&P]
REPRODUCTION NUMBER:LC-USF34-060083-D (b&w film neg.)
MEDIUM:1 negative : safety ; 3 1/4 x 3 1/4 inches or smaller.
CREATED/PUBLISHED:1939 June.
CREATOR:
Vachon, John, 1914-1975, photographer.
NOTES:
Title and other information from caption card.
LOT 1718 (Location of corresponding print.)
Use electronic surrogate.
Transfer; United States. Office of War Information. Overseas Picture Division. Washington Division; 1944.
Film copy on SIS roll 27, frame 1022.
TOPICS:
Tygart Valley--West Virginia
SUBJECTS:
United States--West Virginia--Randolph County--Tygart Valley.
FORMAT:
Safety film negatives.
PART OF:Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress)
REPOSITORY:Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540
DIGITAL ID:(intermediary roll film) fsa 8c36007
OTHER NUMBER:D 3751
CARD #:fsa2000040710/PP