Collection consists of printed materials and ephemera documenting the civil rights movement from the 1950s to 1971.

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

12 boxes (6 linear ft.)

Restrictions on Access 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.