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Finding Aid for the Debbie Louis Collection on Civil Rights, 1949-1971
1111
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Title: Debbie Louis Collection of Material about the Civil Rights Movement in the United States,
Date (inclusive): 1949-1971
Collection number: 1111
Creator: Louis, Debbie
Extent: 12 boxes (6 linear ft.)
Abstract: Collection consists of printed materials and ephemera documenting the civil rights movement from the 1950s to 1971.
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections.
Los Angeles, California 90095-1575
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.
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.
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.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States--History--Archival resources.
Civil rights workers--United States--Archival resources.
Civil rights movements--Southern States--History--Archival resources.