Civil Rights Documents

Are people born free? Do governments give rights to citizens or do citizens give-up some rights in exchange for good government? These are stories about people seeking and achieving their civil rights.

This text image depicts a page from Jupiter Hammon's famous speech to the African Society of New York City which he gave on the 24th of Sept...

Image of Justice Frankfurter's notes regarding the Brown v. Board of Education II case.  Notice the words he used:  ...with all deliberat...

Page from the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano (also known as "Gustavus Vassa, The African"). As conditions grew worse on the ship, kidnapped African...

Page from the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano (also known as "Gustavus Vassa, The African"). Here Equiano learns the reason why he was captured:&nbs...

What was it like for a fugitive slave who was trying to be free? We hear from one individual who lived in the hollow of a poplar tree for seven months...

Elizabeth King - a character in The Descendants - signed a "Living Will" before she was seriously injured in a powerboat accident. What is a "Living ...

Lt General John L. DeWitt recommended that Japanese-Americans be excluded from their homes in areas where their presence could be problematic during W...

Nelson Mandela, known as "The First Accused" at the Rivonia treason trial, gave this opening statement (on his own behalf) at the beginning of the tri...

A leaflet, containing the following words, was issued by the Command of Umkhonto we Sizwe on December 16, 1961.  It acknowledge responsibility fo...

During America's years of chattel slavery, people could be bought and sold.  If an "owner" of slaves died, the slaves would be inventoried as "pr...

Did people around the world know what the Nazis were doing in Poland before the end of the war? In 1942, the Polish government-in-exile sent a pamphle...

Bookcover image of Memoirs from the House of the Dead, by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

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