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Civil Rights Movement in America (1950's and 1960's): Finding Books

This guide provides resources that will enable you to critically examine the African-American's turbulent struggle for civil rights in 20th century America.

SORA for ebooks/audiobooks

Access ebooks/audiobooks for school assignments or leisure reading, using SORA!  Sora is an app + website giving you access to hundreds and hundreds of titles.  Users can check out all of ERMHS Library's Digital Resources.  In addition, the collections at our three local public library systems, NYPL, BPL and QPL are available to you (when you link those accounts)    

How do I get started? 

On the Sora App:

  1. Download onto device

  2. Tap “My school is NYCDOE”

  3. Log in with DOE credentials

On your browser:

  1.  Type: https://soraapp.com/library/nycschools 

  2. Sign-in with DOE credentials  [short overview video of Sora, below]

I Need To Find Book Sources For My Research

  • Think about your topic, in general terms. Think of some descriptive terms (keywords) from your broad topic.  Enter the term and click "Keyword."  Look at the list of books on your search results.  Identify a few titles that you're potentially interested in.  
  • Find the book(s) on the shelves by the call number on the spine of the book.  
  • Look in the book for the Index (usually at the back of the book).  The Index is an alphabetical listing of the books' contents. Also look for the Table of Contents (usually at the front of the book) which lists Chapter Content.
  • Consider these questions:  Are the contents of the book what you need?  The whole book or just a few chapters?  Is the date of publication relevant to your search? (copyright or publication information is on the Copyright Page, usually found on the back of the Title Page.

Call Numbers: The books' address on the shelf

Non-fiction  books are classified by subject and are given a number according to that subject.  Underneath that number will be the first three letters of the authors' last name. This combination of numbers and letters is the books' call number.  So, the call number for a non-fiction book written by Judy L. Hasday  entitled, The Civil Rights Act of 1964:  an end to racial segregation is 342.7308 HAS

 

Biographies are denoted with a "B" or "BIO," followed by the last name (or first 3 letters of the last name) of the person about whom the book is written.  Both autobiographies (the account of a persons' life written by the person) and biographies (the life-history of an individual, written by someone else) will have this type of call number.  So, a book written about Emmett Till and entitled Emmett Till:  the murder that shocked the world and propelled the civil rights movement, would have the call number B Till.

Call Numbers

A CALL NUMBER IS THE BOOKS' "ADDRESS."   YOU WILL FIND IT ON THE SPINE OF THE BOOK.

      NON-FICTION CALL NUMBERS  

        BIOGRAPHY CALL NUMBERS

Some Titles from Murrow's Library