Digital Collections

The Booker T. Washington Papers [online]. [Urbana, IL]: History Cooperative : the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois, 2000 [cited 22 August 2002]. Available from: http://www.historycooperative.org/btw/.
This free and searchable site offers access to the content of 14-volume collection of Washington's papers. A search for James Napier (1845-1940), Nashville businessman and personal friend of Washington, retrieves numerous documents. Washington also writes about his 1909 speaking tour of Tennessee. Search the index for Tenn. for additional references to Tennessee topics.

Built in America: Historic American Building Survey / Historic American Engineering Record, 1933-Present [online]. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1998- [cited 26 June 2002]. Available from: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/hhhtml/hhhome.html.
This collection includes images of the First Baptist Church (Memphis), Beale Street Historic District, and slave cabins.

The Church in the Southern Black Community [online]. [Chapel Hill, N.C.] : Academic Affairs Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1999- [cited 28 May 2002]. Available from: http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/index.html.

Civil Rights Room [online]. Nashville, Tenn.: Nashville Public Library, n.d. [cited 25 May 2004]. Available from: http://www.library.nashville.org/Newsevents/Civil%20Rights%20Room/civilrightsroom.htm.
Includes an overview of the 1960 Nashville sit-in campaign, and a slide show of 16 Nashville Banner photographs covering the sit-ins.

Images of the Struggle [online]. Memphis, Tenn.: Memphis Civil Rights Research Consortium, n.d. [cited 28 May 2002]. Available from: http://exlibris.memphis.edu/mcrrc/photofil.html.
A small collection of photographs from various events associated with the 1968 Sanitation Workers' Strike in Memphis.

The Jackson Davis Collection of African-American Educational Photographs [online]. Charlottesville: Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library, 1999.
Includes over 140 photographs of Tennessee schools (e.g., Shelby County Training School), teachers and students during the first half of the twentieth century.

Nashville's Civil Rights Movement: A Photo Gallery of Archived Images by The Tennessean's Staff Photographers [online]. Nashville: The Tennessean, [2002]. Available from: http://www.tennessean.com/civilrights/index.shtml.

October 1960: The Untold Story of Jackson's Civil Rights Movement [online]. Jackson, Tenn.: The Jackson Sun, 2000 [cited 21 June 2002]. Available from: http://www.jacksonsun.com/civilrights/index.shtml.
Includes recollections of key local figures in the movement (e.g., Viola McFerren).

Photonegatives Database [online]. New Haven: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, n.d. [cited 26 June 2002]. Available from: http://highway49.library.yale.edu/photonegatives/.
Includes photographs of James Weldon Johnson, a letter from Arna Bontemps to Langston Hughes, and dust jacket illustrations by Aaron Douglas.

Prints & Photographs (P&P) Online Catalog [online]. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, n.d. [cited 10 June 2002]. Available from: http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html.
Try searches for Fisk University or Civil Rights Tennessee.

SOHP Archives [online]. Chapel Hill, NC: Southern Oral History Program, n.d. [cited 24 June 2002]. Available from: http://www.sohp.org/archives/index.html.
Includes an audio file of an interview with John Hope Franklin. The noted historian "recalls his undergraduate days and the early years of his career at Fisk University, and Nashville's racial climate at the time."

Traveling Culture: Circuit Chautauqua in the Twentieth Century. Iowa City: University of Iowa Libraries, n.d. [cited 31 July 2000]. Available from: http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/traveling-culture/.
Includes digital images of publicity brochures for over 4500 performers and speakers who were part of the Chautauqua circuit. Includes brochures for performances of the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

Voices of Civil Rights [online]. AARP and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, 2004 [cited 29 May 2004]. Available from: http://www.voicesofcivilrights.org/.
The "Search" option in "The Voices" section allows one to limit by state ("Story Location").

Guides to Archival Collections

• Fisk University Special Collections
• The Kelly Miller Smith Research Collection, Vanderbilt University
• Tennessee State University Library: Archival Holdings
• Thelma Battle Grassroots Study of Local African-American History, Williamson County Public Library
• University of Memphis Special Collections Department

Microform Collections

American Missionary Association Archives. Tennessee. New Orleans, La: Amistad Research Center, [197?].

Centers of the Southern Struggle: FBI Files on Selma, Memphis, Montgomery, Albany, and St. Augustine. Frederick, MD : University Publications of America, 1988. 21 microfilm reels.

The Claude A. Barnett Papers. Frederick, Md : University Publications of America, 1980- .
Part Three of this collection includes documents about Fisk University, Highlander Folk School, Meharry Medical College, and Tennessee A & I State College.

Countee Cullen Papers, 1921-1969. New Orleans: Amistad Research Center, Dillard University, 1975. 7 microfilm reels.
Letters from approximately 1200 individuals, including Tennesseans Arna Bontemps, Aaron Douglas, and Charles S. Johnson.

Federal Surveillance of Afro-Americans (1917-1925): The First World War, the Red Scare, and the Garvey Movement. Frederick, Md. : University Publications of America, 1985. 25 microfilm reels.

General Education Board Archives. Series 1, Appropriations. Subseries 1, The Early Southern program. Tennessee. Wilmington, DE : Scholarly Resources, 1993. 24 microfilm reels.
The Early Southern Program aided African-American schools, teachers, and students in Tennessee and other Southern states.

New Deal Agencies and Black America in the 1930s. Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1983. 25 microfilm reels.
Overview from the publisher.
Materials come from the files of the Office of Education, National Youth Administration, Department of Interior, Civilian Conservation Corps, U.S. Employment Service of the Department of Labor, Office of the Secretary of the Department of Labor, National Recovery Administration, Department of Commerce, and Works Progress Administration. Some of the documents from these agencies specifically address Tennessee.

Papers of the NAACP. Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1982- .

The Peonage Files of the U.S. Department of Justice, 1901-1945. Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1989. 26 microfilm reels.
Peonage is a form of labor control that relies on debt to compel a worker. See the printed guide to this collection for the reel/frame numbers for the Tennessee cases.

Records of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, 1895-1992. Bethesda, Md.: University Publications of America, 1994.
Review: Microform Review 24 (Summer 1995): 146-49.

Records of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1954-1970. Bethesda, Md.: University Publications of America, 1995. 82 microfilm reels.

Selected Records of the Tennessee Field Office of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1872. Washington: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1958. 73 microfilm reels.

Primary Sources: Newspapers

Danky, James P., and Maureen E. Hady, eds. African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.
This work includes information about 197 Tennessee newspapers and periodicals. Entries include title, publication dates, frequency of publication, an indication of where the title is indexed, libraries holding the title, and other factual information.

Primary Sources: Selected Books & Articles

DeCosta-Willis, Miriam, ed. The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells. Boston : Beacon Press, c1995. 214p.

Hay, Frederick J., ed. Goin' Back to Sweet Memphis: Conversations with the Blues. Athens : University of Georgia Press, c2001. 271p.

Honey, Michael Keith. Black Workers Remember: An Oral History of Segregation, Unionism, and the Freedom Struggle. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. 402p.
Emphasis on Memphis.

Lewis, Ronald L. "Race and the United Mine Workers' Union in Tennessee: Selected Letters of William R. Riley, 1892-1895." Tennessee Historical Quarterly 36 (Winter 1977): 524-36.

McKee, Margaret, and Fred Chisenhall. Beale Black and Blue: Life and Music on America's Main Street. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [1981]. 265p.
Excerpts from oral history interviews.

Special Projects

African-American Rural Church Project [MTSU]

Memphis Civil Rights Research Consortium