Louis (Debbie) Collection on Civil Rights, 1949-1971

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Summary

Title:
Debbie Louis Collection of Material about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States,
Dates:
1949-1971
Creators:
Louis, Debbie
Abstract:
Collection consists of printed materials and ephemera documenting the civil rights movement from the 1950s to 1971.
Extent:
12 boxes (6 linear ft.)
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Debbie Louis Collection on Civil Rights (Collection 1111). Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.

Background

Scope and content:

Collection consists of printed materials, ephemera, and publications documenting the civil rights movement in the United States. Collected and arranged by Debbie Louis, the collection's emphasis is on the black struggle in the South; also includes some material related to the organized efforts of Mexican Americans in California.

Biographical / historical:

Debbie Louis was an author and collector of civil rights materials.

Expanded Historical Narrative

The real beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement came in 1954 when, in Brown vs. Board of Education, the Court found separate schools inherently unequal and called for desegregation. In 1957 the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was formed in Atlanta, and Martin Luther King, Jr. became leader of the movement. Major advances of the movement came with the sit-ins at the Greensboro, North Carolina, lunch counters (orchestrated by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), the Freedom Rides integrating buses in the South, the voter registration drives in Mississippi, the protests and marches in Birmingham, Alabama, and the March on Washington in August 1963. President Johnson called upon Congress to act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. After violence occurred in a march just outside Selma, Alabama, Congress passed the Voting Rights Law of 1965. The movement began to fragment following the urban rioting throughout the U.S. in the summers of 1965-67. The Black Panther movement led by Stokely Carmichael, formerly of SNCC, called for a revolution in the ghettos. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.

Acquisition information:
Gift of Debbie Louis, 1971.
Processing information:

The collection was sorted and arranged into folders and series by Debbie Louis in 1971. To improve access for researchers, the collection was re-housed and the inventory used to create a finding aid in the fall of 2004. Louis' arrangement of the material was preserved.

Arrangement:

Arranged in the following series:

  1. Civil rights movement, 1949-1970.
  2. Miscellaneous, 1963-1971.
  3. National organizations, 1954-1970.
  4. Central issues, 1957-1970.
  5. Publications, 1964-1966.
  6. Additions to the collection, 1958-1966.

Physical location:
Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact the UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
Rules or conventions:
Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

About this collection guide

Collection Guide Author:
Processed by Dennis Tyler, with assistance from Laurel McPhee as part of the CFPRT project, Fall 2004; machine-readable finding aid created by Caroline Cubé and edited by Josh Fiala, Laurel McPhee and Amy Shung-Gee Wong.
Date Prepared:
© 2005
Date Encoded:
Machine-readable finding aid created by ByteManagers using OAC finding aid conversion service specifications. Machine-readable finding aid derived from in-house paper finding aid, with supplemental text rekeyed by Caroline Cubé, February 2005 . Around that same time the collection was further processed as part of the CFPRT project, Fall 2004 , and a new machine-readable finding aid derived from database containing container list structure and data was created, with encoding added via MS Access and Notetab Pro by Caroline Cubé. Online finding aid edited by Josh Fiala and Amy Shung-Gee Wong.

Access and use

Restrictions:

COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF: Open for research. Advance notice required for access. Contact the UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections Reference Desk for paging information.

Terms of access:

Property rights to the physical object belong to the UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Debbie Louis Collection on Civil Rights (Collection 1111). Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.

Location of this collection:
A1713 Charles E. Young Research Library
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
Contact:
(310) 825-4988
AskLSC@library.ucla.edu
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