The U.S. Civil Rights Era in Global Context

Scholar Screencast, by Greg Adler

• Part 1: 12 Minutes

• Part 2: 8 Minutes

• “By adjusting our teaching of US History to include a few global perspectives, we are starting to cultivate in our students a natural habit of the mind rather than simply the proverbial “thinking outside the box” to thinking outside our borders. It is the global approach that our students will need to take as they face the different challenges of 21^st Century .”

Note: We suggest adding primary and secondary sources found in this module to the C3 Inquiries below. Doing so will add a dimension of "how to globalize U.S. history?" not found in the original design.

• Civil Rights

• Apartheid

• The Long Civil Rights Movement

• Isabel Wilkerson's Caste

• African-American Voices and Reconstruction

• Video Series: Freedom of a Lifetime – South Africa’s Struggle (2008)

• Podcast, “Worth a lot of Negro Votes: Black Voters, Africa, and the 1960 Presidential Campaign” (2008). From the Journal of American History.

  1. Article based on the podcast.

• Kevin Gaines paper presentation “African-American Expatriates in Ghana and ‘The Long Hot Summer of the 1960s'” at Southern Oral History Program (2009).

  1. Part 1 – 10 minutes

  2. Part 2 – 10 minutes

  3. Part 3 – 9 minutes

• For All the World to See: Online Exhibit explores the historic role of visual culture in shaping, influencing, and transforming the fight for racial equality and justice in the United States from the late-1940s to the mid-1970s (2010)

• Steve Spence, Cultural Globalization and the US Civil Rights Movement (excerpt) in Public Culture (2011).

• "What Paul Robeson Said", article in the Smithsonian (2011)

• Video Series: Freedom Now – The Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi (2012).

• John Lewis and Malcom X meet in Kenya, video interview with John Lewis (2012)

• Book Review – Race, Ethnicity, and the Cold War (2013).

• Podcast -15 Minute History from UTexas: Episode 36, Apartheid (2013).

• What is the biggest misconception about racism (2015)

• Matt Guterl – The Irish Rebellion Resonated in Harlem (2016).

• When Castro Came to Harlem (2016)

• Article on Malcolm X and Fidel Castro meeting in New Your City in 1960 (includes primary sources). (2016)

• Lynn Burnett, “The Global Context of the Civil Rights Movement” (2016)

• Michael P. Steinberg: Martin Luther King Jr. in East and West Berlin (2017)

• Article on James Baldwin in Turkey (includes primary sources of Baldwin in the 1960s). (2017)

• The Black Panther Party Around the World (2017)

• The History of Russian Involvement in America’s Race Wars (2017)

• The African Roots of Dr. King’s Vision Article (2018)

• Rise of the Israeli Black Panther Party Article (2018)

• Article in TIME “Martin Luther King Jr.’s Vision Was More Global Than We Remember. The World Mourned Him Accordingly” (2018)

• “Our Bondage and Our Freedom”, Frederick Douglass and Black Abolitionists in Scotland. Digital History Project from the University of Edinburgh (2018)

• Dr. Hasan Jeffries, Ted Talk, “Why We Must Confront the Painful Parts of US History” (2019)

• The World, “Brazil’s long, strange love affair with the Confederacy ignites racial tension” (2019)

• Teaching Hard History Podcast: Slavery Today (2019)

• Throughline Podcast: A Race to Know (2020)

• Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent Throughline podcast (2020)

• Reframing the Movement Teaching Hard History podcast (2020)

• The Protesters Are Upholding America’s Moral Authority Abroad The Atlantic(2020)

• Rise of the Israeli Black Panther Party - ArcGIS Story Map (c. 2020)

• Ho Chi Minh speech (excerpts) on lynching in the United States (1924).

• Ho Chi Minh speech “On Lynching and the KKK” (1924)

• Viktor Deni Poster: “The Democracy of Mr. Lynch” (1930).

• Dmitir Moor Poster: Freedom to the prisoners of Scottsboro! (1932)

• W.E.B. DuBois, “An Appeal to the World : A Statement of Denial of Human Rights to Minorities in the Case of citizens of Negro Descent in the United States of America and an Appeal to the United Nations for Redress.” (1947)

• Soviet poster ‘Under capitalism’ and ‘Under socialism’. (1948)

• Ralph J. Bunche, Acting United Nations Mediator for Palestine, commencement address given at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee (1949)

• We Charge Genocide: The Historic Petition to the United Nations for Relief From a Crime of The United States Government Against the Negro People (1951)

• Martin Luther King Jr. Interview by Etta Moten Barnett in Accra, Ghana (1957).

• U.S. Memo Summarizing Soviet Communication about U.S.Civil Right Issues (1963).

• Statement by Comrade Mao Tse-tung Supporting the Afro-Americans in Their Just Struggle Against Racial Discrimination by U.S. Imperialism. Peking Review No. 33, (1963).

• Soviet Union Poster: Shameful Brand of American Democracy (1963).

• SNCC Project in Africa, website article and primary resources (1964)

• Malcolm X’s Speech at the Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (1964).

• Malcolm X’s Speech at the University of Ghana (1964).

• Martin Luther King Jr. Speech on Segregation, Civil Rights, and Apartheid in South Africa. Given in London (1964).

• Photo series: MLK at the Berlin Wall (1964) pic 1, pic 2, pic 3.

• Martin Luther King Jr. Sermon in East Berlin (1964)

• James Baldwin’s “Pin Drop Speech” – video (1965)

• Cambridge England – “Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro? James Baldwin and William Buckley, Full Debate on Video (1965)

• “Beyond Vietnam” Speech by Dr. King (1967)

• Dr. King’s “Massey Lectures: Conscience for Change” delivered in Canada 1967.

  • Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

• Political Cartoon: “The odd thing about assassins, Dr. King, is that they think they’ve killed you.” The Chicago Sun-Times (April 1968).

• Statement by Comrade Mao Tse-tung Supporting of the Afro-American Struggle Against Violent Repression Peking Review (1968).

• Speech by Nelson Mandela in Havana, Cuba celebrating Cuba’s role in eliminating Apartheid (1991)

• President Obama’s Speech At The Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture (2018)

• A collection of monument images to Dr. King outside the USA

• Murals that Memorialize George Floyd around the World (2020)

• Protests around the globe after the death of George Floyd (2020)

• US must take ‘serious action’ to halt police killings of unarmed African Americans, High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, (2020)

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