Race Relations in America

Race Relations in America is a collection of digitized primary sources originally produced by the Race Relations Department at Fisk University. The Race Relations Department was an influential think tank offering a forum for discussion and research on racial topics. Subjects addressed include poverty and inequality, segregation, class, housing, employment, education, and government policy. Major figures in the Civil Rights Movement participated in the Department’s programs, including Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, Charles Houston, and Marguerite Cartwright.

The collection includes over 100 hours of audio recordings of speeches given by prominent members of the Civil Rights movement, surveys, case studies, photographs, and scrapbooks. The physical documents were digitized from the archives of the Race Relations Department of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, housed at the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans.