Civil Rights
Lesson Plan
Explore the Documents
Martin Luther King Jr. Delivers Speech before the New York State Civil War Centennial Commission to commemorate the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, New York City, September 12, 1962.
Petition of Certain Parents and Taxpayers of Hillburn, N.Y. to the Commissioner of Education, 1943.
In the fall of 1943, Commissioner Stoddard received a petition from the African American residents of the Village of Hillburn for equal educational opportunities for their children. For more than a decade, the parents of African American children in this small New York community had struggled to obtain the same level of educational accommodations as the white children in their village. A redrawing of the district lines in the 1930s placed all but a few African American students in the Brook School which lacked indoor plumbing, a library, and an area for recreation. All of the white students, according to the new district lines, were assigned to the Main School which was newer and furnished with all the modern amenities.
Discrimination in the Workplace
Learn More with New York Archives Magazine
Spotlight on New York’s “Law Against Discrimination"
by Brian Purnell
A Natural Right to Knowledge
by Denise Roe
Teacher Myrtilla Miner from Madison County, New York was a feminist and abolitionist who went South to teach. What she saw caused a revolution in her—and in education.
Safe Travels
by David Layne
The Negro Motorist Green-Book kept travelers out of harm's way.
