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"Many Thousand Go"
Both the author and original date of "Many Thousand Go" are unknown, as is usually the case with slave songs. It was first published in a collection entitled Slave Songs of the United States (New York: A. Simpson & Co., 1867). The compilers of [...]
"Song of the Coats"
Support for the communist Viet Cong was strong among many ordinary South Vietnamese people. This song describes one way civilians on the homefront supported V.C. against U.S.-led forces during the Vietnam War. The song was collected and published by [...]
"Times Is Gettin' Hard"
Here Mississippi bluesman Lucious Curtis sings about hardships among African-American cotton sharecroppers in the South. Recorded in 1940 by folklorists John and Alan Lomax, the song was probably written earlier. The Lomaxes toured the rural South [...]
CCCers Sing "Oh, why did I join the C.C.C.?"
This song, titled "Loveless C.C.C.," was most likely written as a parody by a young enrollee in the Civilian Conservation Corps. The song pokes fun at the hard work and strict discipline found in the camps. While a majority of corpsmen were [...]
CCCers Sing "Oh Why Did I Ever Join the CCC?" (with text supports)
This song, titled "Loveless C.C.C.," was most likely written as a parody by a young enrollee in the Civilian Conservation Corps. The song pokes fun at the hard work and strict discipline found in the camps. While a majority of corpsmen were [...]
Congress Signs An Act Respecting Alien Enemies
The Act Respecting Alien Enemies was one of four Alien and Sedition Acts that Congress passed and president Adams signed into law in 1789. The laws were controversial in that they challenged the authority of the Constitution, specifically the Tenth [...]
Chief Justice Taney's Majority Opinion in Dred Scott v. Sanford
In Dred Scott v. Sanford, Supreme Court judges considered two key questions: did the citizenship rights guaranteed by the Constitution apply to African-Americans, and could Congress prohibit slavery in new states? The first excerpt below addresses [...]
Birmingham, Alabama Issues Racial Segregation Ordinances
This selection of city ordinances from Birmingham, Alabama, highlights the often absurd lengths to which local leaders in the Deep South were willing to go in order to maintain the strict separation of races. These "Jim Crow" laws, passed by [...]
Illustration of bus where Rosa Parks sat, December 1, 1955
The diagram below shows where Rosa Parks sat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955. At the time, the first ten seats on Montgomery buses were reserved for white passengers only. Parks was sitting in the eleventh row. When the bus [...]
Congress Passes the First Immigration Law
In March 1790, the newly-formed Congress passed a law establishing the rules for becoming a citizen. Under the law, only "free white persons" who had been in the United States for at least two years were eligible for citizenship, thus excluding free [...]