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ProQuest History Vault
Black Freedom Struggle and
NAACP Papers
Topics for Research

ProQuest Resources for Black Studies Researchers
• The Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century and the Civil Rights movement is “continuously fascinating for students” and
almost all colleges universities offer a wide range of classes on this topic. In addition, the civil rights movement is a popular
topic for Ph.D. students.
• ProQuest offers an amazing combination of different resources that can be used by a wide students and researchers to
complete common assignments or research topics on Black Freedom in the 20th Century.
• ProQuest products that can be used to complete these assignments are:
ProQuest History Vault
• Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal
Government Records
• Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Organizational
Records and Personal Papers, Part 1
• Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Organizational
Records and Personal Papers, Part 2
• Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century: Federal
Government Records, Supplement
• NAACP Papers: Board of Directors, Annual Conferences,
Major Speeches, and National Staff Files
• NAACP Papers: NAACP's Major Campaigns: Education,
Voting, Housing, Employment, Armed Forces
• NAACP Papers: NAACP's Major Campaigns: Scottsboro, Anti-
Lynching, Criminal Justice, Peonage, Labor, and Segregation
and Discrimination Complaints and Responses
• NAACP Papers: NAACP's Major Campaigns: Legal
Department Files
• NAACP Papers: Special Subjects
• NAACP Papers: Branch Department, Branch Files, and Youth
Department Files
ProQuest Black Historical Newspapers
• Chicago Defender
• Atlanta Daily World (1931-2003)
• Los Angeles Sentinel (1934-2005)
• New York Amsterdam News (1922-1993)
• Pittsburgh Courier (1911-2002)
• Baltimore Afro-American (1893-1988)
• Norfolk Journal & Guide (1921-2003)
• Philadelphia Tribune (1912-2001)
• Cleveland Call & Post (1934-1991)
ProQuest Black Studies Center
ProQuest Congressional
Alexander Street: Black Thought and Culture
Alexander Street: Black Studies in Video
Alexander Street: Black Women Writers
Alexander Street: Women and Social Movements

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Research Topics using ProQuest Resources
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Black Freedom Struggle in the 20th Century Research Topics
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There are literally hundreds of topics that students and researchers
might study via these resources. Here below is a listing of 75 topics
that students might pursue. This list is just meant to provide
examples – there are many other possibilities!
1. African American workers during the era of the Great Migration
2. African Americans and organized labor
3. African Americans in the U.S. Military in the 20th Century
4. Albany, Georgia, civil rights demonstrations
5. American Committee on Africa organizational history
6. Biography of A. Philip Randolph
7. Biography of Bayard Rustin
8. Biography of Congressman Arthur W. Mitchell
9. Biography of Mary McLeod Bethune
10. Biography of Robert F. Williams
11. Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters organizational history
12. Civil rights during the Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan
administrations
13. Civil rights organizations and the push for anti-lynching
legislation
14. Civil rights organizations and the campaign for voting rights
15. Compare the planning for the 1941 March on Washington and
the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

Other Research Topics
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16. Congress of Racial Equality organizational
history
17. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division
18. Discrimination in education and school
desegregation in Southern states, or outside
the South or compare across states or
regions
19. Discrimination in employment
20. Discrimination in housing
21. Discrimination in public accommodations
22. Discrimination in the military
23. Discrimination in transportation
24. FBI Surveillance of the Black Panther Party
25. Federal Council on Negro Affairs, known as
the Black Cabinet under Franklin D.
Roosevelt
26. Freedom Budget proposal by A. Philip
Randolph
27. St. Augustine, Florida, civil rights
demonstrations
28. Impact of the New Deal on African Americans
29. John F. Kennedy and Civil Rights
30. League of Revolutionary Black Workers
organizational history

Research Topics
31. Legal work of the Congress of Racial Equality’s
Scholarship, Educational, and Defense Fund for Racial
Equality
32. Lyndon B. Johnson and Civil Rights
33. March on Washington 1963, planning the march
34. March on Washington 1963, language used in speeches
during the march
35. March on Washington, reaction to the march following the
march and anniversaries of the march
36. Mississippi Freedom Summer
37. Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
38. Montgomery Bus Boycott through the lens of FBI agents
39. Montgomery Bus Boycott and the NAACP in Alabama
40. NAACP and discrimination in the criminal justice system
41. NAACP and international affairs
42. NAACP and its relationship to the Black Power Movement
43. NAACP and Veterans Affairs
44. NAACP and voting rights
45. NAACP annual conventions--analyze annual convention
resolutions
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Research Topics
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46. NAACP annual conventions--analyze the language
used at speeches at NAACP conventions
47. NAACP annual conventions--compare and contrast
conventions across time
48. NAACP Branch Department under the leadership of
Gloster B. Current
49. NAACP Branches--compare two different branches in
different states or compare multiple branches
50. NAACP Branches--study of a single branch
51. NAACP Branches--study of branches in one state
52. NAACP campaign against the Birth of a Nation movie
53. NAACP education discrimination cases after Brown v.
Board of Education
54. NAACP Labor Department
55. NAACP legal cases [NAACP Papers collection
contains records from over 600 cases on a wide
variety of topics]
56. NAACP legal strategy leading to Brown v. Board of
Education
57. NAACP Regional offices and regional officers
58. NAACP--women leaders at the national and regional
level
59. NAACP--women leaders at the state and branch level
60. NAACP Youth Councils

Research Topics
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61. National Advisory Commission on Civil
Disorders (Kerner Commission)
62. National Association of Colored Women’s
Clubs organizational history
63. Peonage or forced labor
64. Police community relations in urban areas
65. President Truman’s Committee on Civil
Rights
66. Radio Free Dixie radio program or Crusader
newsletter of Robert F. Williams
67. Revolutionary Action Movement
organizational history
68. Scottsboro case
69. Selma to Montgomery March
70. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
organizational history
71. Student Nonviolent Coordinating and the
cultivation of grassroots leaders
72. Student Voice newsletter
73. Southern Christian Leadership Conference
organizational history
74. Tuskegee Airmen
75. White House Conference on Civil Rights