Research Guides: HIST 3322/ 4333/ 5386: African American Civil Rights Movement: Video & Audio

Librarian

Kristina Claunch

Contact:

936-294-1520
kclaunch@shsu.edu
Library (NGL) Room 223G

The March

Full digital restoration of James Blue's monumental film, The March. From the National Archives' YouTube channel.

Click the icon in the bottom right corner of the video player to view it in full screen!

Videos from the National Archives on YouTube

Civil Rights: Hollywood Roundtable 1963 1963 film of Sidney Poitier, Marlon Brando, Charleton Heston, and other Hollywood names conversing about the March on Washington (National Archives, via YouTube)
More videos on civil rights from the National Archives YouTube channel

Audio Recordings of President Lyndon B. Johnson

(SHSU username and password required for off-campus use).

Presidential Recordings Digital Edition: The Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon White House Tapes This link opens in a new window Hundreds of hours of presidential audio recordings (and full text transcripts) from the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. Covers many major issues, from the Kennedy Assassination and the Civil Rights Movement to the Vietnam War, the War on Poverty, and much more. Also includes photo and video galleries and a linked timeline.

Audio Documentaries

An Imperfect Revolution: Voices from the Desegregation Era
Description from site: "Nearly everyone who experienced school desegregation has a story to tell about crossing racial lines. ... American RadioWorks traveled to Louisville, KY and Charlotte, NC to talk with people about their memories of integration." (American RadioWorks)
King's Last March
Description from site: "Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Four decades later, King remains one of the most vivid symbols of hope for racial unity in America. But that’s not the way he was viewed in the last year of his life." (American RadioWorks)
Oh Freedom Over Me: The Freedom Summer in the Civil Rights Movement
Description from site: "In the summer of 1964, about a thousand young Americans, black and white, came together in Mississippi for a peaceful assault on racism. ...It came to be known as Freedom Summer, one of the most remarkable chapters in the Southern Civil Rights movement." (American RadioWorks)
Remembering Jim Crow
Description from site: "For much of the 20th Century, African Americans in the South were barred from the voting booth, sent to the back of the bus, and walled off from many of the rights they deserved as American citizens. Until well into the 1960s, segregation was legal. The system was called Jim Crow. In this documentary, Americans—black and white—remember life in the Jim Crow times." (American RadioWorks)
Say it Plain, Say it Loud: A Century of Great African American Speeches
Highlights speeches by a diverse collection of 25 black leaders of the last century, from Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, and Fannie Lou Hamer to Mary Francis Berry, Clarence Thomas, and Barack Obama. (American RadioWorks)
State of Seige: Mississippi Whites and the Civil Rights Movement
Examines white groups which fought against the civil rights movement and sought to maintain racial segregation in Mississippi. (American RadioWorks)

Video from Ambrose Video

(Requires an SHSU username and password to view off campus.)

Tip: The links below will open a complete, alphabetical list of Ambrose videos. Scroll down to find the title of interest, then click on it to view a detailed list of film chapters / clips on more specific topics.

History of Civil Rights in America
This 8-part series presents America's unique 250-year experiment where the rights of a citizen are grounded on the idea that all men are created equal.
History of Black Achievement in America
This original, 8-part series documents Black Achievement in American history, its defining role in the growth of the country, and its influence on current events.
Twentieth-Century Turning Points in U.S. History
8-part series designed to provide a clear overview of the people and events that distinguished the 20th Century. Scroll through the list of film chapters to pick out and watch just those related to the black Civil Rights Movement.

Videos from Films on Demand

(Requires an SHSU username and password to view off campus.)

Some of these videos are documentary-style films (largely secondary sources), but many also contain original film footage of historic events (primary sources).
See more Civil Rights video from Films on Demand...

Birth Struggle of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
"This documentary from the CBS News Archives, filmed in 1964, examines the stormy passage of civil rights bill H.R. 7152."
Black/White and Brown: Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka
The Fateful Decade: From Little Rock to the Civil Rights Bill
Let Freedom Ring: Moments from the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965
"This NBC News program presents original coverage from frontline correspondents and camera teams at work during critical junctures in America’s battle for racial equality."
Marshall, Texas
Bill Moyers looks at Marshall, Texas, during the 1960s Civil Rights movement, when it was divided into two towns: one white, one black.
Martin Luther King, Jr.: Look Here
"One of the first in-depth televised interviews given by Martin Luther King, Jr., this program was first broadcast on October 27, 1957, on the NBC News show Look Here."
Minds That Matter: John Lewis
Experiences of Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), "perhaps the most prominent living veteran of the American civil rights movement."
Mississippi, America: Legal Battles of the Freedom Summer
Scottsboro: An American Tragedy
In March of 1931, two white women stepped off a train in Paint Rock, Alabama, and accused nine black teenage passengers of gang rape. So began the Scottsboro case, one of the legal battles that helped give rise to the Civil Rights movement.
They Were There: Remembering the Civil Rights Movement
Memoirs of the Civil Rights Movement from a few of those who experienced it.

Video from Black Studies Center

(SHSU username and password required for off-campus use).

Browse primary-source, historical film footage in the Black Studies Center database
Topics range from school integration, apartheid, and race riots to civil rights protests, dance, music, and more.