This collection of resources is provided for students, teachers, and scholars interested in learning more about the Jim Crow era. They provide important context for understanding and teaching the laws identified by On the Books. The list is curated by Sarah Carrier, North Carolina Reference and Instruction Librarian at Wilson Special Collections Library, with a focus on vetted primary and secondary sources related to Jim Crow, and most are specific to North Carolina. Resources can be filtered by level (primary or secondary) and type (documents and records, fiction, music, photographs, and scholarly works).
Delano, Jack, photographer. “A cafe near the tobacco market, Durham, North Carolina.” Photograph. 1940 May. From Library of Congress, America from the Great Depression to World War II: Black–and-White Photographs from FSA-OWI, 1935-1945.
Crow, Jeffrey J., Paul D. Escott, and Flora J. Hatley Wadelington. A History of African Americans in North Carolina. Raleigh: N. C. Dept. of Cultural Resources, Division of Archives and History, 2011.
J. Allen Kirk. A Statement of Facts Concerning the Bloody Riot in Wilmington, N.C. Of Interest to Every Citizen of the United States. [Wilmington?, N. C.: The Author?, 1898?].
A Voice From the South: Cooper, Anna J. (Anna Julia)
"Agency Circle and School, Cherokee Reservation, Cherokee, N.C." in Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
An era of progress and promise, 1863-1910 : the religious, moral, and educational development of the American Negro since his emancipation by Hartshorn, W. N. (William Newton), 1843-1920
Delano, Jack, photographer. “At the bus station in Durham, North Carolina.” Photograph. 1940 May. From Library of Congress, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives.
Back Ways: Understanding Segregation in the Rural South is an interdisciplinary, collaborative research project designed to unearth, describe, and map the often hidden forces of structural and institutional discrimination that have outlasted the victories of the Civil Rights Movement. This project began in 2014 under the direction of Seth Kotch, professor in American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, and interviews have been conducted by Darius Scott, SOHP field scholar and PhD in Geography at UNC Chapel Hill. The geographic focus of this project is rural piedmont and eastern North Carolina, where poverty and crime rates remain high, academic performance is low, and residents - especially African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos - are routinely seen as threatening or incapable. This project is situated in a growing body of scholarship around space, place, and identity, central issues to research in the humanities. It seeks to engage a community in a conversation about how it shaped its own spaces in the face of formal discrimination and the effects of those acts of resistance.
State Archives of North Carolina. From the African American Heritage and Civil Rights Collection, PC.2185, B1, F1. Postcard with the caption: "The Baptist Supply Store is the only book store operated by a Negro State Convention in America. It is located in the new Baptist headquarters ' building. 601 S. Wilmington St. in Raleigh, N.C."Collection is open and we seek relevant additions, including Green Books.
Feldman, Glenn. Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2004.
Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), and David Levering Lewis. Black Reconstruction in America. New York: Atheneum, 1935.
Cafe in warehouse district during tobacco auction season. Durham, North Carolina. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
DigitalNC. Image shows a group of mostly African American young people in front of the Center Theatre. A "Colored Balcony Entrance" sign can be seen. Numerous bicycles are parked on the sidewalk along the curb. Some of the young people are carrying placards.
State Archives of North Carolina. Charlotte Hawkins Brown, Palmer Institute, Sedalia, NC. The Alice Freeman Palmer Memorial Institute, better known as Palmer Memorial Institute, was a school for upper class African Americans. It was founded in 1902 by Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown at Sedalia, North Carolina near Greensboro. Palmer Memorial Institute was named after Alice Freeman Palmer, former president of Wellesley College and benefactor of Dr. Brown. From the General Negatives, State Archives of NC.
Civil Rights Demonstration, 4 August 1962, in the Roland Giduz Photographic Collection #P0033, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Civil Rights Demonstration, 7 March 1960, in the Roland Giduz Photographic Collection #P0033, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Civil Rights Demonstrations, 7 January 1961, in the Roland Giduz Photographic Collection #P0033, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Civil Rights Demonstrations, 7 January 1961, in the Roland Giduz Photographic Collection #P0033, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Civil Rights Demonstrators in Front of the Long Meadow Dairy Store, February 1960, in the Roland Giduz Photographic Collection #P0033, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Civil Rights Greensboro provides access to archival resources documenting the modern civil rights era in Greensboro, North Carolina, from the 1940s to the early 1980s. During this formative period, Greensboro was an epicenter of activity, continuing a tradition that traces its roots back to the 19th century when members of the area's large Quaker population provided stops on the Underground Railroad.
Civil Rights Street Demonstration., 25 May 1963, in the Roland Giduz Photographic Collection #P0033, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Created by Molly Carmody and Victoria Lasarte for the Digital Durham class at Duke University.
Civil Writes march and sit-in, fasters (sic, Civil Rights), February, 1 April 1964, in the Jock Lauterer Photographic Collection #P0069, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Civil Writes march and sit-in, fasters (sic, Civil Rights), February, 1 April 1964, in the Jock Lauterer Photographic Collection #P0069, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Chafe, William H. Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
State Archives of North Carolina. Color film strip depicting various photos of scenes and statistics from c.1949-1950’s Duplin County Schools, PhC.188. From Photograph Collections, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.
"Colored Troops Man the 155 mm. Coast Defense Guns- Camp Davis, N.C.", Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Draper, Sharon M. (Sharon Mills). Copper Sun. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2006.
Wright, Barbara. Crow. New York: Random House, 2012.
Gates Jr., Henry Louis and Tonya Bolden. Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow. New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc., 2019.
Defense of the Negro Race----Charges Answered. Speech of Hon. George H. White, of North Carolina, in the House of Representatives, January 29, 1901
Cecelski, David S., and Timothy B. Tyson. Democracy Betrayed: The Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and Its Legacy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.
Don Sturkey Photographic Materials #P0070, North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library.
Dr. Martin Luther King (and others) Sit-in at Woolworths in downtown Durham," 16 February 1960, in the Durham Herald Co. Newspaper Photograph Collection #P0105, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Martin Luther King (and others) Sit-in at Woolworths in downtown Durham, 16 February 1960, in the Durham Herald Co. Newspaper Photograph Collection #P0105, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Martin Luther King (and others) Sit-in at Woolworths in downtown Durham, 16 February 1960, in the Durham Herald Co. Newspaper Photograph Collection #P0105, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Martin Luther King (and others) Sit-in at Woolworths in downtown Durham, 16 February 1960, in the Durham Herald Co. Newspaper Photograph Collection #P0105, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Gordon Carey Rev. Douglas Moore - race meeting, 16 February 1960, in the Durham Herald Co. Newspaper Photograph Collection #P0105, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Drinking fountain on the county courthouse lawn, Halifax, North Carolina. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Durham Colored Library, Durham, N.C., in Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Durham Herald Co. Newspaper Photograph Collection #P0105, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Arsenault, Raymond. Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Franklin, John Hope, and Alfred A. Moss. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. New York: Knopf, 1988.
Gen. J.S. Carr's letter to ex-Confederates : the old soldiers will not be disfranchised : their rights are secure : extravagance and corruption follow Negro rule by Carr, Julian Shakespeare
Gilmore, Glenda Elizabeth. Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
“The Negro Motorist Green Book,” published between 1936 and 1966, was both a travel guide and a tool of resistance designed to confront the realities of racial discrimination in the United States and beyond. The book listed over 300 North Carolina businesses—from restaurants and hotels, to tourist homes, nightclubs and beauty salons—in the three decades that it was published. The exhibit by the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission highlights a complex statewide network of business owners and Green Book sites that allowed African American communities to thrive, and that created “oasis spaces” for a variety of African American travelers.
These interviews were conducted by Gerrelyn Chunn Patterson as part of her research for her dissertation, Brown Can't Close Us Down: The Invincible Pride of Hillside High School (University of North Carolina, 2005). Patterson, who attended Hillside High School in Durham, N.C., 1972-1975, interviewed other Hillside alumni about the historically African-American high school during school desegregation. Interviewees represent alumni from the 1950s to the 1970s, some of them teachers at Hillside at the time of the interviews. The interview with Evalee Parker discusses the experience of a white student at the school in the 1970s.
State Archives of North Carolina. Robeson County. Indian school building at magnolia, NC. December 1939. JWA-27 No. 4482. From the Luther J. Jordan Photograph Collection.
Indians of North Carolina : letter from the secretary of the Interior, transmitting, in response to a Senate resolution of June 30, 1914, a report on the condition and tribal rights of the Indians of Robeson and adjoining counties of North Carolina by McPherson, O. M. (Orlando M.); United States. Dept. of the Interior, published 1915
Karen Kruse Thomas, a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, conducted these interviews as part of a series of interviews with North Carolina health professionals about the origins and growth of the modern health care system, focusing on integration and its effects on health policy. The interviews contain descriptions of medical training and experiences with a focus on changes in medicine brought about by desegregation, new technology, "socialized medicine" and Medicare, and federal health care programs. Special attention is given to the experiences and activism of African American medical students and African American practitioners. There is also a strong focus on the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
Eric Dolphy “Jim Crow” from the album Other Aspects, 1962
State Archives of North Carolina. June Kay Campbell (1925-2004), mother of Ralph Campbell Jr., and also William C. (Bill), Edwin, and Mildred Campbell (now Christmas). A General Assembly Resolution 2005-24 and House Joint Resolution 1118 includes the following tribute: ". on September 7, 1960, June Kay Campbell, with courage, confidence, and dignity, escorted her son, Bill, on his first day to school at the formerly all-white Murphey Elementary School, paving the way for the integration of the Raleigh Public School System; and Whereas, despite malicious taunts and threats of violence, June Kay Campbell walked Bill to school every day for three years;. "
The first African-American woman undergraduate to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Karen L. Parker was born in Salisbury, N.C., and grew up in Winston-Salem, N.C. Parker worked for the Winston-Salem Journal before attending UNC-Chapel Hill. She majored in journalism and was elected vice-president of the UNC Press Club and served as editor of the UNC Journalist, the School of Journalism's newspaper, in 1964. After graduating in 1965, Parker was a copy editor for the Grand Rapids Press in Grand Rapids, Mich. She also worked for the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers before returning to the Winston-Salem Journal. The collection is Karen L. Parker's diary with entries 5 November 1963-11 August 1966. The entries appear regularly every few weeks in the beginning of the diary and gradually appear less often, ending with entries every several months. Parker began the diary while she was a student majoring in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. One of the first entries concerns the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, her observations of reactions in Chapel Hill to the assassination, and her own thoughts and feelings about it. Diary entries describe her experiences as the first African American woman undergraduate to attend UNC-Chapel Hill, her involvement with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), her participation in civil rights demonstrations against segregation in Chapel Hill, and her arrest after entering a segregated Chapel Hill restaurant. An entry dated 30 April 1964 describes the visit of former segregationist governor of Mississippi Ross R. Barnett to the UNC-Chapel Hill campus and his remarks about the inferiority of African Americans. The diary also includes entries detailing Parker's observations and experiences concerning race relations and discrimination in Grand Rapids, Mich., while copy editor for the Grand Rapids Press and her changing views of the civil rights movement as she considered the merits of self-defense as opposed to non-violent resistance. Entries throughout the diary describe her thoughts about where she belonged as an educated African-American female during the civil rights era.
Valk, Anne M., and Leslie Brown. Living with Jim Crow: African American Women and Memories of the Segregated South. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.