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Civil Rights Movement Summary

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Project Report: Oral History and the History of the Civil Rights Movement - Kim Lacy Rogers, The Journal of American History, Vol. 75, No. 2 (1988), pp. 567-576 The civil rights movement of the early 1960s was one of the most significant events in the modern history of the United States, one that has elicited much examination and research by historians. An era that saw the power and influence of the movement play an integral role in the eradication of legalised segregation and the disenfranchisement of African Americans. Given the historic importance of the civil rights movement, this paper aims to examine Dr Kim Lacy Rogers ‘Oral History and the History of the Civil Rights Movement’, published in the Journal of American History in 1988. A Professor of History and American Studies at Dickinson College, much of Rogers research was centred on African American communities in the American South. She was the author of numerous oral history related books and her reputation was that of a renowned and influential expert on the subject. Rogers outlines the difficulties of chronicling all of the facets of protest movements into the narrative framework of American history. The sheer volume of individuals engaged in protest as well as what she describes as …show more content…

However she offers a springboard to seek out such literature on the African American movement in the North where many of the narratives contend that by focusing on the mainstream leaders in the 1960s south actually diverts from the very different strategies used by African Americans in the North. One of the main highlights of Rogers article is the fact that rather than look upon civil rights being a single, cohesive movement it is “a far more complex process that engages ordinary individuals and not simply a matter of great men and legislation”

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