A broad array of programming will be presented in conjunction with the exhibition. A series of noontime Gallery Talks will be given by Library curators on focused topics in the exhibit. Other programs include lectures, musical performances, and special tours. A full list of events will be posted as schedule is finalized.
Tours
We will be offering highlight tours (approximately 45 minutes) of the exhibition to the general public at 1 p.m. on Mondays and Fridays. Please meet the docent at the 2nd floor visitor information desk by the entrance to the exhibition in the Thomas Jefferson Building. The tours are free and open to the public, no reservations are necessary. For more information please contact Stacie Moats at 202–707–0185.
Gallery Talks
A series of noontime gallery talks on Wednesdays (unless otherwise noted) are given by Library curators and specialists in the Southwest Gallery, second floor, Thomas Jefferson Building for the duration of The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom exhibition.
October 1, 2014—Curator Adrienne Cannon, Manuscript Division, and Exhibition Director Betsy Nahum-Miller, Interpretive Programs Office, discuss selected exhibition highlights.
October 8, 2014—Sara Duke, Prints and Photographs Division, discusses political cartoonist Howard Brodie’s work relating to the civil rights movement.
October 22, 2014—Curator Robert Brammer, Law Library, presents “From the Ashes of Reconstruction to the Heart of Atlanta: The Long Battle to Integrate Public Accommodations.”
October 29, 2014—Guha Shankar and Kate Stewart, American Folklife Division, share a selection of oral histories from the Civil Rights History Project Collection.
November 5, 2014—Curator Robert Brammer, Law Library, presents “From the Ashes of Reconstruction to the Heart of Atlanta: The Long Battle to Integrate Public Accommodations.”
January 21, 2015—James Hutson, Manuscript Division, shares a brief history of how the term “civil rights” evolved through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
March 18, 2015—Georgia Higley, Serial and Government Publications Division, presents "Civil Rights and Comic Books."
March 25, 2015—Larry Appelbaum, Music Division, discusses the Charles Mingus composition, “Fables of Faubus,” and its cultural significance during the civil rights era.
April 15, 2015—Sara Duke, Prints and Photographs Division, discusses the variety of opinions expressed by editorial cartoonists in reaction to the Civil Rights movement.
May 13, 2015—Megan Harris, Veterans History Project, presents “Fighting on Two Fronts: Veterans’ Experiences within the Segregated Military during WWII.”
May 27, 2015—Georgia Higley, Serial and Government Publications Division, presents "Reporting Civil Rights: Newspapers Tell the Story."
June 17, 2015—Sara Duke, Prints and Photographs Division, presents "No Photographs Allowed: Howard Brodie Illustrates the Senate Civil Rights Debate."
September 9, 2015—Curator Robert Brammer, Law Library, presents “The Voting Rights Act of 1965: Then and Now.”
November 4, 2015—Angela McMillian, Humanities and Social Sciences Division, discusses the life and work of Mary Church Terrell, civil rights advocate, and related resources available from loc.gov.
December 9, 2015—Curators Maricia Battle and Adrienne Cannon share selected highlights from the exhibition.
Lectures and Symposium
Monday, September 15, 2014— "Popular Culture and Civil Rights: Jazz, Film, TV and the Making of the Movement" (1pm—Whittall Pavilion)
Musicologist Ingrid Monson (Harvard University) and historian Ruth Feldstein (Rutgers University) discuss their works about the stars of the stage and screen who placed their talents in service of the struggle. Ingrid Monson is the author of Freedom Sounds: Civil Rights Call out to Jazz and Africa. Ruth Feldstein’s recent, well-received book is How it Feels to be Free: Black Women Entertainers and the Civil Rights Movement.
Presented by the American Folklife Center in the continuing series “Many Paths to Freedom: Looking Back, Looking Ahead at the Long Civil Rights Movement.”
Thursday, September 25, 2014—Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture (12pm—West Dining Room)
Hisham D. Aidi of Columbia University discusses his widely-acclaimed new book that examines the role of hip-hop, jazz and reggae plays a crucial role in the new global Muslim youth culture. The New York Times called his book “ . . . highly ambitious,” remarking that it “exhibits a breathtaking familiarity with different forms of radicalizing music and the widely different ways it is understood in different cultures.” Presented in association with the Daniel A.P. Murray African American Culture Association
Thursday, September 25, 2014—SYMPOSIUM: “Organizing Across the Boundaries: Strategies and Coalitions in the Struggle for Civil Rights and Social Justice” (Mumford Room)
Presented by the American Folklife Center in the continuing series “Many Paths to Freedom: Looking Back, Looking Ahead at the Long Civil Rights Movement,” in conjunction with Library-wide activities commemorating Hispanic Heritage Month.
Friday, October 10, 2014—The Great White Way: Race and the Broadway Musical with Warren Hoffman (12pm−Whittall)
Warren Hoffman, a program director, producer, theater critic, and playwright, discusses the role of race in American musical theater. Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Kanter called Hoffman’s book “an eye-opener for anyone studying the racial implications of commercial musical theater.” Presented in association with the Daniel A.P. Murray African American Culture Association
Wednesday, January 14, 2015—Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March” (10:30–11:30am—Whittall)
A Books and Beyond for Young People, sponsored by the Young Readers Center and the Center for the Book with authors Susan Buckley and Elspeth Leacock accompanied, by Lynda Blackmon Lowery—the youngest person at the historic march. A book signing will be held directly after the program and a collection of artifacts from the era will be on display.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015—The Bill of the Century: The Epic Struggle for the Civil Rights Act (12pm—Thomas Jefferson Building, First Floor, Room LJ-119)
Clay Risen will discuss and sign his book The Bill of the Century: The Epic Struggle for the Civil Rights Act (Bloomsbury, 2014). Co-sponsored by the Interpretive Programs Office, the Serial and Government Publications Division, and the Law Library of Congress. Free, no tickets required.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015—“Robert F. Kennedy, the Law, and the Struggle for Racial Justice” (12-1pm—James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave., S.E., Sixth Floor, Room LM-649, Mumford Room)
Patricia A. Sullivan, professor of history at the University of South Carolina, presents, “Robert F. Kennedy, the Law, and the Struggle for Racial Justice,” in conjunction with The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom exhibition. Co-sponsored by the Interpretive Programs Office and the Law Library of Congress. Free, no tickets required.
Thursday, June 25, 2015—“Memorialization and Justice as an Ancestral Imperative: Two American Cases” Scholars Roundtable (12–1:30 pm—Pickford Theater)
Ken Bilby, Smithsonian Research Associate, explores the important implications of two pathbreaking cases of recent public memorialization for public understandings of the inter-related concepts of indigeneity, human rights, and civil rights in the future.
Friday, June 26, 2015— An Interview with Civil Rights Activist James Meredith, via Skype (12:00–1:00pm—Mumford Room, Sixth Floor Madison Building)
Sponsored by the Library of Congress Chapter of Blacks In Government and the Daniel A. P. Murray African-American Cultural Association.
Tuesday, July 7, 2015—“Selma, the Voting Rights Act, and Reel History” Book Talk (12–1:30 pm—Pickford Theater)
Gary May, Professor Emeritus of History, Delaware University, explores the significance and continuing importance of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and discusses both how the story of the Voting Rights Act is framed in the Hollywood lens and what such representations mean for teaching and learning about history. Co-sponsored by the Interpretive Programs Office and Education Outreach.
Monday, August 3, 2015—“Visions of Liberty: A Conversation with Ira Glasser and Bob Adelman” (1pm–James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave., S.E., Sixth Floor, Room LM-649, Mumford Room). Co-sponsored by the Interpretive Programs Office, the Law Library of Congress, and the Prints and Photographs Division. Free, no tickets required.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015—This Little Light of Mine: The Legacy of Fannie Lou Hamer (2015) Film Screening and Discussion (12–1:30pm—SPECIAL LOCATION: Hill Center, 921 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Washington DC)
Filmmaker Robin Hamilton’s documentary short explores the life of Fannie Lou Hamer, an impoverished sharecropper who became a powerhouse in the battle for the right to vote in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement. Co-sponsored by the Interpretive Programs Office and Education Outreach.
Thursday, August 6, 2015—“Teaching the Civil Rights Movement from the Bottom-Up Fifty Years After the Voting Rights Act” Scholars Roundtable (12–1:30 pm—Mumford Room)
Emilye Crosby, Professor, SUNY-Geneseo, presents bottom-up movement history and the ways it introduces students to a wider range of tactics and to a history that begins before the big marches and extends after the passage of landmark legislation, like the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Co-sponsored by the Interpretive Programs Office and Education Outreach.
Thursday, September 10, 2015—"Civil Rights, Identity and Sovereignty: Native American Perspectives on History, Law, and the Path Ahead " Symposium (5pm—Coolidge Auditorium). Free, registration required.
Noted scholars, authors, and civil rights activists Walter Echo-Hawk, LaDonna Harris, Tim Tingle, and Malinda Maynor Lowery as they look back at the long struggle for equality, examine current barriers, and address the path ahead. Moderated by Dr. Letitia Chambers. Sponsored by the Library of Congress and the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums.
Friday, October 16, 2015—Beyond Civil Rights: The Moynihan Report and Its Legacy (12pm—James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave., S.E., Third Floor, Room LM-302, Pickford Theater)
Daniel Geary will discuss and sign his new book Beyond Civil Rights: The Moynihan Report and Its Legacy (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015). Free, no tickets required.
Concert
Mavis Staples—Saturday, October 11, 2014 (8pm—Coolidge)
At the heart of America’s music for six decades, Mavis Staples is a legend in several musical worlds—gospel, soul, R & B, jazz and rock. Since her early days touring at the height of the Civil Rights struggle with The Staples Singers, she has built a wide-ranging and still-growing list of creative partners—The Band, Bob Dylan, Los Lobos, Jeff Tweedy. With joy and profound faith she continues to lift up her glorious voice in an eloquent and powerful call for justice and equality. Presented in association with the Daniel A.P. Murray African American Culture Association
Film Series
Television and the Civil Rights Movement: A Black History Month Lunchtime Film Series
Wednesdays at noon, February 4, 11, 18, and 25, 2015
James Madison Building, Third Floor, Mary Pickford Theater (Room LM-302)
The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom exhibition features more than 70 audiovisual selections, including many clips excerpted from acclaimed television documentaries that originally aired during the early 1960s on national networks. This special film series presents four of the programs that documented racial tensions during this turbulent time and brought the Civil Rights Movement’s struggles into the homes of millions of Americans. Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress Daniel AP Murray African-American Historical Association and the Library of Congress Chapter of Blacks in Government.
February 4, 2015: Sit-In (NBC White Paper; broadcast December 20, 1960)
One of the first prime-time documentaries on the civil rights movement, NBC’s Sit-In profiled the Nashville movement, called by Martin Luther King, Jr., “the best organized and most disciplined in the Southland,” and its efforts to desegregate the city’s department store lunch counters, with revealing footage and interviews by participants, including leader Diane Nash and John Lewis, now a Member of Congress.
February 11, 2015: Walk in My Shoes (ABC Close-Up! broadcast September 19, 1961)
Called “a stunning accomplishment” by the New York Times, ABC’s Walk in My Shoes, produced and narrated by African American journalist Louis Lomax, presented to American audiences “for the first time ... the opportunity to see and hear Negroes from all walks of life discuss their viewpoints,” the New York Amsterdam News commented.
February 18, 2015: Confronted (National Educational Television; broadcast December 2, 1963)
As Congress deliberated civil rights legislation in Washington, National Educational Television (NET), the precursor to PBS, examined hostile white responses throughout the nation to African American demands for “freedom now” in Confronted, shot by pioneering cinéma vérité filmmakers David and Albert Maysles.
February 25, 2015: Filibuster—Birth Struggle of a Law (CBS Reports; broadcast March 17, 1964)
As Southern Senators prepared to filibuster the civil rights bill, CBS Reports reviewed the bill’s history and presented a live debate from the U.S. Capitol between Sen. Hubert Humphrey, the floor manager of the fight to pass the bill, and Sen. Strom Thurmond, one of its fiercest opponents.
Friday, November 20, 2015: Special Film Presentation (12pm—James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave., S.E., Third Floor, Room LM-302, Pickford Theater). Free, no tickets required.
On the 90th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s birth, the Library of Congress will present Kennedy v. Wallace: A Crisis Up Close, a groundbreaking behind-the-scenes television documentary that features rare Oval Office footage and reveals Attorney General Kennedy’s role during a 1963 civil rights crisis. Co-sponsored by the Interpretive Programs Office and the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division.