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Civil Rights & Human Rights - History Day

This guide is for History Day resources. It is just some examples to highlight the numerous resources we have. See also specific groups under Demographic Groups page in the MAIN History Day Research guide.

History Day
Scratch pad with general resources for History Day. Links to archived past guides

While Civil Rights and Human Rights are not the same, they are grouped together here to condense organization.

The United Nations defines Human Rights as: "Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination."

The Law Information Institute (LII) explains:

"A civil right is an enforceable right or privilege, which if interfered with by another gives rise to an action for injury.
Discrimination occurs when the civil rights of an individual are denied or interfered with because of the individual's membership in a particular group or class. Various jurisdictions have enacted statutes to prevent discrimination based on a person's race, sex, religion, age, previous condition of servitude, physical limitation, national origin, and in some instances sexual orientation.

Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

People often confuse civil rights and civil liberties. Civil rights refer to legal provisions that stem from notions of equality. Civil rights are not in the Bill of Rights; they deal with legal protections. For example, the right to vote is a civil right. A civil liberty, on the other hand, refers to personal freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights. For example, the First Amendment's right to free speech is a civil liberty."

See https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/civil_rights

Books, Documents, etc

Search Primo (Library Catalog)
Primo is the CT State Library catalog. Search for books, articles, and more!

Articles & Databases

These are some suggested databases - many require our library card for remote access.

Researching Human Rights & Social Justice with HeinOnline
HeinOnline recorded webinar on searching within the Hein Social Justice Suite.

Complete Directory for People with Disabilities
A comprehensive directory of resources available for people with disabilities, detailing independent living centers, rehabilitation facilities, state & federal agencies, associations, support groups and more.
LGBTQ+ Rights
The LGBTQ+ Rights database is a HeinOnline collection of materials relating to the gay rights movement in America, including an interactive timeline, as well as subject-coded court cases, scholarly articles, books, pamphlets, reports, and more. This collection charts the gay rights movement in America, showing the civil rights codified into law in the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as the inequalities that still exist today.
User help page at https://libguides.heinonline.org/lgbtq-rights
Open Society Justice Initiative
The Open Society Justice Initiative from HeinOnline is part of the Open Society Foundations. It was established in 2003 to provide expert legal support for Open Society's broader mission and values through strategic human rights litigation and other legal work.
User help page at https://libguides.heinonline.org/open-society
American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside
Collection of full-text newspapers published at United States prisons by incarcerated individuals, including Connecticut newspapers digitized by the Connecticut State Library.
Help for searching JSTOR https://support.jstor.org/hc/en-us/articles/115004701828-Search-Help-Resources-Overview
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law
HeinOnline: "It brings together a multitude of essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world."
This includes statute passed by colony and state on slavery, federal statute dealing with slavery, and reported state and federal cases on slavery.

User help page at https://libguides.heinonline.org/slavery-in-america-and-the-world
Gun Regulation and Legislation in America
Covering the regulation of firearms in the United States, includes periodicals, key compiled federal legislative histories, relevant congressional hearings, CRS Reports, Supreme Court briefs, and more.
User help page at https://libguides.heinonline.org/gun-regulation
History of Capital Punishment
A HeinOnline resource includes both database and PDF versions of the Eugene G. Wanger and Marilyn M. Wanger Death Penalty Collection: A Descriptive Bibliography. It also included hearings, trials, periodicals, and more.
User help page at https://libguides.heinonline.org/history-of-capital-punishment
U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1823-1978
Primary judicial documents presented to the United States Supreme Court. Coverage: 1823-1978.
Supreme Court Insight
The Supreme Court Insight Collection is a complete online collection of full opinions from Supreme Court argued cases, including per curiam decisions, with dockets, joint appendices and amicus briefs starting with the 1975 Court term.
User help pages at https://proquest.libguides.com/supremecourtinsight/tips#basic
HeinOnline
Comprehensive historical collection of legal and law-related material, including many North American legal journals. Coverage: From 1800s to present. Continually adding new content.
User help page at https://libguides.heinonline.org/getting-started/overview

HeinOnline has several collections - scroll through the main menu page and click on items such as:

Brennan Center for Justice Publications at NYU School of Law
Civil Rights and Social Justice
Criminal Justice & Criminology
History of Capital Punishment
Immigration Law & Policy in the U.S.
Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: History, Culture & Law
LGBTQ+ Rights
Open Society Justice Initiative
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law
Women and the Law (Peggy)

Black Freedom Struggle in the United States: Challenges and Triumphs in the Pursuit of Equality
From ProQuest. CSL does not subscribe to all the databases.
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Site: "In this website, we present primary source documents from several of the time periods in American History when the river of the Black Freedom Struggle ran more powerfully, while not losing sight of the fierce, often violent opposition that Black people have faced on the road to freedom....The documents presented here represent a selection of primary sources available in several ProQuest databases. The databases represented in this website include American Periodicals, Black Abolitionist Papers, ProQuest History Vault, ProQuest Congressional, Supreme Court Insight and Alexander Street’s Black Thought and Culture.
"The goal of this website is to provide a selection of primary source documents that may be used by a wide range of students, from middle and high school students to college students and independent scholars. Examples of assignments may include National History Day projects or research papers about Black Freedom."
Amistad Digital Resource
Amistad Digital Resource for Teaching African American History
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Civil Rights Digital Library has this description in their catalog: "Web site with responding to mandates requiring resources for teaching African American history into the social studies curriculum in K-12 public schools, to provide a more inclusive and accurate record of American history. It is designed as a multimedia resource for secondary school teachers to enhance their knowledge and ability in teaching African American history. It includes photographs, audio recordings, news clips, and excerpts of oral history interviews with a descriptive narrative text explaining significant themes and key events in African American history, from slavery to the twenty-first century. The narrative is event driven in order to fit easily into classroom curriculum, while emphasizing the role of the individual."

Newspapers

American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside
Collection of full-text newspapers published at United States prisons by incarcerated individuals, including Connecticut newspapers digitized by the Connecticut State Library.
Help for searching JSTOR https://support.jstor.org/hc/en-us/articles/115004701828-Search-Help-Resources-Overview

Race and Ethnicity Keyword Thesaurus for Chronicling America

Other Institutions

Connecticut

Social Justice Thematic Collection in CTDA
Connecticut Digital Archive (CTDA) - Connecticut History Illustrated Featured Topics
Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy (IMRP)
Site: "The Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy (IMRP) is a non-partisan, University-based organization dedicated to enriching the quality of local, state and national public policy. The IMRP tackles critical and often under-addressed urban issues with the intent of ensuring the most positive outcomes for affected individuals and entities. In doing so, the IMRP bridges the divide between academia, policymakers, practitioners, and the community."
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Site: "The Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy (IMRP) became the successor organization to the Connecticut Institute for Municipal Studies (CIMS) in 2002 when leaders in the legislature and executive branch called upon Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) to build upon CIMS's mission in an academic setting. In the 2021 legislative session of the Connecticut General Assembly, the institute was relocated to the UConn Hartford campus."
Social Justice (CHI Featured Topics)
Connecticut History Illustrated (CHI) collections may include items from CSL Archives.
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Connecticut History Illustrated (CHI): "From the labor movement to the civil rights era to marriage equality and LBGQ advocacy in the twenty-first century, groups and individuals in Connecticut have championed social justice in a variety of ways in the face of many challenges, sometimes succeeding in bringing about meaningful change and sometimes encountering persistent barriers. Resources from CTDA contributor organizations document many of these efforts and the underlying political, social and demographic conditions from which they originate. The Social Justice featured topic includes a sampling of materials related to civil and human rights currently in the CTDA. For more on these topics, enter terms, such as names of people associated with social justice movements or actions, or particular topics associated with social justice, for example: racism, demonstrations, discrimination, housing, “civil rights,” “human rights,” (enclose phrases in quotes )into the search box."

Other

Anti-Oppression
Simmons University Library research guide. Links to subscription items will not work for CSL patrons.
Struggle for Human Rights and Freedoms - Topics in Chronicling America (LOC)
Library of Congress (LOC) list of topics for research guide for Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
CT State Library's newspaper collection may also include articles on this topic.
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Library of Congress (LOC) Site: "Chronicling America provides free access to millions of historic American newspaper pages. Listed here are topics widely covered in the American press of the time. We will be adding more topics on a regular basis"
Civil and Human Rights Law Portal - Global (LLMC)
LLMC, a non-profit Minnesota-based consortium of law libraries, open-access portal to primary sources.
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Dttp review. Vol 49, No 1 (2021) "RIGHTS! Civil and Human Rights Law Portal" by Dominique Hallett. " If you are looking for primary materials such as current constitutions, human/civil rights acts, Non-Governmental Organizations’ websites, advocacy organizations, and other resources specifically dealing with injustices regarding marginalized parties, this is the place to look...The page opens at the “Civil and Human Rights Law Portal—Global,” which includes links to various government organizations, judicial information, non-governmental organizations, research and education resources and various documents from different countries."
Social Justice & The Kerner Commission Report: Consequences of Inaction: Introduction
Resources that expand on and support GODORT's (Gov't Documents Round Table) juried session at ALA (American Library Association) Annual 2022 in Washington, D.C.

History Day - Civil Rights & Human Rights