Category: Civil Rights

This vintage 12 pound brass fire nozzle is stamped “BFD 23” to designate its use from the Birmingham, Alabama Fire Station #23. One of the most iconic and disturbing moments of the Civil Rights Movement was when the Commissioner of Public Safety, Bull Connor, ordered the Birmingham, Alabama Fire Department to use fire hoses on men, women, and children demonstrators. “Connor ordered the city’s fire hoses, set at a level that would peel bark off a tree or separate bricks from mortar, to be turned on the children. Boys’ shirts were ripped off, and young women were pushed over the tops of cars by the force of the water. When the students crouched or fell, the blasts of water rolled them down the asphalt streets and concrete sidewalks.” (McWhorter, p. 370–371)

Continue reading “Vintage Birmingham, AL Fire Nozzle”

      

This 1950’s pamphlet “Freedom, the South, and Nonviolence” was published by Fellowship of Reconciliation. It is a plea for funding to support those boycotting the buses in Montgomery, Alabama.  It states, “In the immediate present, it has been demonstrated dramatically by thousands of Negroes in Montgomery, Alabama, as they have trudged the streets of that city, and organized a complicated system of carpools, rather than submit any longer to segregation on the city’s buses.  India’s millions, led by Gandhi, and Montgomery’s thousands, led by twenty-six Negro clergymen, have demonstrated how nonviolent resistance operates at its best….Where such campaigns begin, send your own words of encouragement and support to its leaders.  Let them know that you understand their goals and their methods, and that you are praying for their success.  The knowledge that thousands of other Americans are with them can mean a great deal to men and women surrounded by hostility and Continue reading “1950’s FUNDRAISING BROCHURE FOR MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT”

This small handbill (6 1/4″ x 8 1/2″) advertises a mass meeting “In Protest of RACIAL DISCRIMINATION In Certain Montgomery County Schools” just 5 months after Brown v. Board of Education. It says, “Sponsored by the Montgomery County Citizens Action Committee, Rev. Joseph W. Jackson, Chairman. Cooperating Agency North Hills Branch – N.A.A.C.P.

Hear: Rev. Marshall L. Shepard, Raymond Pace Alexander, Gertrude Ely, Dr. Irwin Griggs, Dr. E. Luther Cunningham, Robert N. C. Nix, and others.

St. Charles Auditorium, Walnut and Moore Streets. Norristown, PA. Continue reading “1954 Mass Meeting Handbill NAACP”

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s was highly controversial in many black churches, where the minister preached spiritual salvation rather than political activism. The National Baptist Convention became deeply split; J.H. Jackson, President of the National Baptist Convention, had supported the Montgomery bus boycott of 1956, but by 1960 he told his denomination they should not become involved in civil rights activism.  Jackson’s vocal stance for “civil rights through law and order” went in direct opposition to the methods of civil disobedience advocated by King. As pastor of Olivet Church on the south side of Chicago, seven years after King’s death, Jackson would have the congregation spend upward of $50,000 to seal up the stone doors facing South Parkway and carve out another entrance around the corner,  just so the church address never would be listed on the street to be renamed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive, after Jackson’s nemesis. Continue reading “1958 J.H. JACKSON (anti-civil rights) National Baptist Convention PIN”

    

This program was handed-out at the silver anniversary Oklahoma Conference of Branches, NAACP on November 17 and 18th 1955.  The legendary T.M.R. Howard and Thurgood Marshall were the featured speakers.  The theme was “INTEGRATION”.

Howard moved into the national limelight as never before after the murder of Emmett Till in August 1955 and the trial of his killers, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant in September. He delivered “[o]ne of the earliest and loudest denunciations of Till’s murder,” saying that if “the slaughtering of Negroes is allowed to continue, Mississippi will have a civil war. Negroes are only going to take so much.” He was also heavily involved in the search for evidence and gave over his home to be a “black command center” for witnesses Continue reading “1955 TMR HOWARD SPEAKER AT NAACP CONFERENCE RE INTEGRATION (also speaking: Thurgood Marshall)”

In an attempt to create as much chaos as possible, segregationists disseminated these cards to students at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas during the 1957-1958 school year. The poem refers to Daisy Bates, who was a mentor, advisor, and escort for the nine African-American students integrating Central High School. The poem also refers to Lamb, Tucker, and Matson who were school board members at the time.

A former classmate of Ernest Green (one of the Little Rock 9) acquired this card from the Couch Estate in Little Rock, Arkansas. He confirms that these cards were handed out throughout the school year to keep tension high. Continue reading “Central High School (Little Rock 9) Segregation Cards”

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was held in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. At the march, Martin Luther King Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech in which he called for an end to racism. Continue reading “Pin from the Historic 1963 March On Washington”

“A First Step Toward School Integration” is a pamphlet from the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE).  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. states at the beginning of the Foreward, “Can the method of non-violence that erased the color line in Montgomery’s buses be applied effectively to schools?  This pamphlet seeks an answer to that question, so urgent in southern communities where the Supreme Court decision of 1954 is not yet accepted.“

Continue reading “1958 RARE INTEGRATION PAMPHLET (CORE)”

Violence and threats of violence against people of color threatened to keep them from voting.  This booklet was created in an effort to reduce fear and discouragement among African-Americans contemplating the vote. Notice that the booklet is edited by Jim Peck, the most famously brutalized Freedom Rider (one year prior to the publication of this booklet). 22 pages, The Right To Vote by James McCain, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 1962.  A phenomenal artifact demonstrating one of the strategies incorporated to persuade African-Americans to vote.

Continue reading “1962 CORE “THE RIGHT TO VOTE””

Rosa Lee Ingram was an African American woman whose 1948 murder conviction, along with the conviction of two of her adolescent sons, raised considerable doubt about the integrity of Georgia’s judicial system. Civil rights organizations launched an ambitious campaign to free the Ingrams in the years that followed.

Continue reading “1948 Rosa Lee Ingram NAACP brochure”

  

This bumper sticker is protesting James Meredith’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss).  The backing is still on the sticker.  It is in good condition.  In 1962, James Meredith was the first African-American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, an event that was a flash point in the African-American civil rights movement. Continue reading “1962 ANTI-JAMES MEREDITH BUMPER STICKER”

Published in 1964, this is a large 95-page booklet covering the Civil Rights Movement from 1957-1964.  Full of photos, this book covers the Civil Rights Movement from Little Rock (1957) to the Protest at the World’s Fair (1964).  Photo shows that the booklet has water damage. Continue reading “1964 “CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL WRONGS””

This 4 page political booklet is titled “More Civil Rights Double-Talk and More Goose Eggs”.  It was distributed by the Republican Congressional Committee in 1952 on behalf of Senator H. Alexander Smith.  The 4 page booklet is white (though discolored by age) with red and black print.  It includes political cartoons and photos of Eisenhower, Nixon, and Smith.  The content of the booklet details “Republican proposals for Civil Rights issues” and highlights the Democratic party’s push for “White Supremacy”.  The booklet is not torn and other than slightly aged, is in mint condition. Continue reading “1952 REPUBLICAN CIVIL RIGHTS BROCHURE”

    

Vernon Johns (April 22, 1892 – June 11, 1965) is considered by some as the father of the American Civil Rights Movement, having laid the foundation on which Martin Luther King, Jr. and others would build. Johns was a courageous and vocal opponent of segregation.  In 1926, he was the first African-American to have his work published in Best Sermons of the Year; this was a personal triumph for Johns as he had repeatedly submitted sermons for consideration in previous years Continue reading “1926 RARE VERNON JOHNS PUBLISHED SERMON”

This booklet titled “MARTIN LUTHER KING AND THE MONTGOMERY STORY” was published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation and sold for ten cents.  The subtitle says, “How 50,000 Negroes found a new way to end racial discrimination.”

Martin Luther King’s relationship with the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) began during the Montgomery bus boycott, when FOR veteran Bayard Rustin Continue reading “1958 MONTGOMERY STORY COMIC (Fellowship of Reconciliation)”

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC; often pronounced “snick”) was one of the most important organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a student meeting organized by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in April 1960.

Continue reading “1960’s SNCC PINBACK”

This 1956 Advertisement is a double-sided card intended for distribution within the black community.  On one side it lists all of Eisenhower’s desegregation accomplishments that have benefitted African-Americans; the other side claims that Stevenson is a “fence-sitter”.

It shows that under Eisenhower…

“No more segregation in Washington D.C.–Hotels, Restaurants, and Schools, over 300 jobs for Negroes paying $6,000-$17,500 per year, no more segregation in Veterans Hospitals, no more separate water fountains or rest rooms in Navy shipyards, no more segregation in the Armed Forces.”

Continue reading “1956 EISENHOWER INTEGRATION AD TARGETING BLACK COMMUNITY”

This 1971 book was “printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary” and is a compilation of hearings before the Civil Rights Oversight Subcommittee on the Enforcement of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  It is a rare “time capsule” of everything that was said before the House of Representatives during this turbulent time.

   

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This is the infamous photo of Amelia Boynton Robinson being gassed and beaten on Bloody Sunday March 7th, 1965.  She was eventually left for dead after being beaten with a billy club for her participation in a peaceful march (across the Edmund Pettus Bridge) for the right to vote. Evidence that this photo went around the world is the fact this is an original press photo from a Latin American country (everything is in Spanish).

Click here to see the autographed copy of Ms. Boynton Robinson’s autobiography.

Continue reading “1965 ORIGINAL INFAMOUS PHOTO OF BEATEN MARCHER, AMELIA BOYNTON ROBINSON”

This Freedom School Poetry book from 1966 is quite a jewel from SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee).  Please read the posted photo (dedicated to Emmett Till); it concludes regarding these poems and paintings that “These are the expressions of the young freedom school students of Mississippi.”

Continue reading “SNCC “FREEDOM SCHOOL POETRY””

This 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ booklet is 92 pages of the NAACP’s Annual Report in 1954, titled “THE YEAR OF THE GREAT DECISION.”  There are several photographs in the book including one with Nixon and one with Eisenhower.  The condition is good.

   

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This campaign brochure for Gene McCarthy lists the civil rights-friendly things Gene McCarthy did in the 1960’s.  Note the cover photo with a young black woman.

 

This 1963 brochure from the NAACP says “From Morning until Night…Humiliation Stalks Them”.  This is the text of the testimony of Roy Wilkins, NAACP Executive Secretary, July 22, 1963, in supporting the public accommodations section (Title II, S.1731) of the proposed civil rights bill being considered by the Senate Commerce Committee.  It says, “…our faltering fealty to the great ideal of ‘all men’ set down in our Declaration of Independence, has shaken the confidence of the millions of mankind who seek freedom and peace.  Do we mean ‘all men’ or do we just say so?  Is our nation the leader of the free world or of the white world?  Are we for democracy in southeast Asia, but for Jim Crow at home?” Continue reading “1963 “HUMILIATION STALKS THEM” (NAACP BROCHURE)”