Our readers who are teaching 20th-century U.S. history this fall may be interested in the new Civil Rights Digital Library, based at the University of Georgia. Covering the 1950s and 1960s era of the civil rights movement, the digital library initiative seeks to document one of the most important social movements in U.S. history. The site possesses a video archive of unedited news film from two Georgia television stations, an incredible list of educator resources featuring annotated bibliographies, lesson plans and modules, slide shows, study guides, and worksheets, and acts as a media portal to resource collections in other prominent libraries. The long list of partners shows how ambitious the Civil Rights Digital Library Initiative is.

Just by typing a name or an event into the search box on the left of the site, one can bring up media culled from every one of the partnered libraries — whether document, image, sound recording, or video clip — as well as a short item description and bibliographic information. Users can also browse the archives by event (notable items placed on a timeline), by place (which brings up a Google-style map with digital pins in various locations), by person (arranged alphabetically), and by topic.

The Civil Rights Digital Library promises to be an extremely useful portal to civil rights history on the web.

(Hat tip to ArchivesNext)

This post first appeared on AHA Today.