Historical Documents

Overview

The Civil Rights Division has prepared this site in compliance with the 1996 Electronic Freedom of Information Act to make Civil Rights Division documents more available to the public. These documents have been selected because the nature of their subject matter is such that the records have become or are likely to become the subject of additional requests.

Categories of Historical Documents

• Involuntary Servitude and Slavery
• American Bar Association (ABA) Committee on Civil Rights
• Civil Rights Demonstrations
• Departmental and Citizen Correspondence
• Desegregation of Schools (University of Alabama; University of Mississippi; Schools on Federal property in Texas, Louisiana, & Tennessee; and Public Elementary & High Schools in the South)
• Enforcement of Voting Rights
• Freedom March on Washington, 1963
• Police Misconduct
• Presidents Committee on Equal Employment in the Armed Forces; Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights under Law; Presidents Report on Equal Opportunity in the Armed Forces
• University of Alabama
• University of Mississippi
• Violence, Demonstrations, and Bombings

Notes

Approximately 90% of the subcategory of Historical Civil Rights Division records contained within the Division's Electronic Reading Room comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. To the extent that any documents do not currently comply because of the poor quality of the over 35-year-old documents, the Division is applying its available resources in an effort to create alternative records that are readable.
Because some of these document collections are large, they have been broken into groups of approximately 50 pages in order to speed up transfer.