The Civil Rights Movement

From the 1910s to 1930s, the Harlem Renaissance marked a golden age for Black literature, music, stage performance, and visual art. Northern cities, such as Harlem in New York, became havens for Black southerners fleeing the repression of Jim Crow. From the 1890s-1920s, some 300,000 Black men and women migrated from the South to the North. These artists celebrated Black culture and sought to highlight the racism endured by their community. In 1939, Billie Holiday recorded "Strange Fruit," a song about lynching. Langston Hughes wrote extensively about racial justice in poems, novels, plays, and essays. By the 1950s and 1960s, a new wave of Black artists emerged, influenced by that earlier generation and informed by the Civil Rights Movement happening around them. 

Below is a sampling of works by Black artists and intellectuals that the library holds related to civil rights. In addition to rare books, the Carter Music Resources Center has a number of recordings by early Black musicians. Note that musical sources will be found in the second floor of the main library, and not in Special Collections.

African American artists.

African American literature.

American poetry -- African American authors.

Civil rights -- Poetry.

Civil rights movements -- United States -- Fiction.

Lynching -- Poetry.