Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
Innovation, patents, science, technology and world-changing contributions.
Pioneers, champions, Negro Leagues, records, activism and excellence.
Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
Black towns, communities, institutions and places where history happened.
Moments that changed communities, movements, institutions and the nation.
In August 1908, a white mob attacked Springfield, Illinois’s Black community, destroying homes and businesses and lynching two Black men. National outrage over the violence helped spur the movement that created the NAACP the following year.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
The Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, housing some 3.5 million books, is the centerpiece of the Harvard Library system. It honors Harry Elkins Widener, a 1907 Harvard College graduate and book collector, and was built by his mother Eleanor Elkins Widener soon after his death in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Widener's "vast and cavernous" stacks hold works in more than one hundred languages which together comprise "one of the world's most comprehensive research collections in the humanities and social sciences." Its 57 miles (92 km) of shelves, along five miles (8 km) of aisles on ten levels, comprise a "labyrinth" which one student "could not enter without feeling that she ought to carry a compass, a sandwich, and a whistle." At the building's heart are the Widener Memorial Rooms, displaying papers and mementos recalling the life and death of Harry Widener, as well as the Harry Elkins Widener Collection, "the precious group of rare and wonderfully interesting books brought together by Mr. Widener", to which was later added one of the few perfect Gutenberg Bibles—the object of a 1969 burglary attempt conjectured by Harvard's police chief to have been inspired by the 1964 heist film Topkapi.
Harvard Library is the network of libraries and services at Harvard University, a private Ivy League university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard Library is the oldest library system in the United States and both the largest academic library and largest private library in the world. Its collection holds over 20 million volumes, 400 million manuscripts, 10 million photographs, and one million maps. Harvard Library holds the third-largest collection of all libraries in the United States, after the Library of Congress and Boston Public Library, by number of volumes held. Among libraries, measured on the number of all items held, it is the fifth-largest library in the nation. Harvard Library is a member of the Research Collections and Preservation Consortium (ReCAP); other members include Columbia University Libraries, Princeton University Library, New York Public Library, Yale University Library, and Ivy Plus Libraries Confederation, making over 90 million books available to the library's users. The library is open to current Harvard affiliates, and some events and spaces are open to the public. The largest and most recognized building in the Harvard Library system is Widener Library in Harvard Yard.
Houghton Library, on the south side of Harvard Yard adjacent to Widener Library, Lamont Library, and Loeb House, is Harvard University's primary repository for rare books and manuscripts. It is part of the Harvard College Library, the library system of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The collections of Houghton Library include the Harvard Theatre Collection and the Woodberry Poetry Room, as well as the personal papers and archives of major American and English writers.
Eleanor Elkins Widener (September 21, 1861 - July 13, 1937) née Eleanore Elkins, also known as Eleanor Elkins Rice was an American heiress, socialite, philanthropist, and adventuress. She was the daughter of wealthy businessman William Lukens Elkins and married George Dunton Widener, the son of wealthy businessman Peter Arrell Browne Widener. She survived the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic but George and their son, Harry, did not. She renovated St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, as a memorial to George and donated $2 million to Harvard University to build the Widener Library as a memorial to Harry. Widener remarried, to Harvard professor Alexander Hamilton Rice. She funded his research and accompanied him on a number of expeditions in South America, Europe and India. After her death, her grandson, Fitz Eugene Dixon Jr., had Penn Morton College in Chester, Pennsylvania, renamed Widener College in her honor.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Shirley Chisholm, elected in 1968.