This page is periodically updated. I will keep adding online researching resources as I find them. I include primary source databases and websites with both secondary and tertiary resources for researching Black and Brown history. Some of the websites also include teaching resources. Any references to local history is for Fort Worth, DFW area or just specific to Texas. Please keep coming back for more resources.
From elementary school to early college high school, students need opportunities to build their critical thinking skills. Research topics pulled from these resources allow students to apply critical thinking skills and encourage them to continuously inquire about historical and contemporary race-based social problems. By researching Black and Brown histories students can engage in a deeper analysis, evaluation, and synthesis of new information from marginalized voices and gain the knowledge and skills to challenge traditional historical narratives. All of the resources provided are accessible online and cover local, state, and national histories. Using these resources students can learn about Robert F. and Mabel Williams, married activists who composed a newsletter, The Crusader, that advocated for armed self-defense in the face of never ending racist violence; or take a deep dive into the Mexican American songs of the Vietnam Era and their connections to the long history of corridos; or get to know Pauline Valenciano through her oral interviews, a Fort Worth activist who participated in boycotts, worked on local and state political campaigns, and labored to make life in Fort Worth more equitable for her three daughters and all other Mexicanos in the city. Whether you are guiding students through the Texas State History Day project, plan to create a classroom based lesson on researching with a final product, or want to get your students engaged in celebrations of national history months, these links will provide you and your students with new topic ideas and resources for researching.
Black History
BlackPast
This website is full of primary source documents that have contributed to the shaping of African American history. These documents are a starting point for additional research and discussions that help further our understanding of the history of people of African ancestry in the United States.
Black Freedom Struggle
The Freedom Archives contains over 12,000 hours of audio and video recordings as well as print materials dating primarily from the late-1960s to the mid-90s. These collections chronicle the progressive history of the Bay Area, the United States, and international movements for liberation and social justice.
Slave Voyages
This digital memorial raises questions about the largest slave trades in history and offers access to the documentation available to answer them. European colonizers turned to Africa for enslaved laborers to build the cities and extract the resources of the Americas. They forced millions of mostly unnamed Africans across the Atlantic to the Americas, and from one part of the Americas to another. Analyze these slave trades and view interactive maps, timelines, and animations to see the dispersal in action.
Civil Rights Movement Archive
Our purpose is to freely make available the history of our movement from the perspective of those whose boots were on the ground — what we refer to as “up-from-below” and “inside-out” history.
Freedom Summer Digital Collection
More than 25,000 pages from the Freedom Summer manuscripts — enough to fill several file cabinets — are available online. In them you will find official records of organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); the personal papers of movement leaders and activists such as Amzie Moore, Mary King and Howard Zinn, letters and diaries of northern college students who went South to volunteer for the summer; newsletters produced in Freedom Schools; racist propaganda, newspaper clippings, pamphlets and brochures, magazine articles, telephone call logs, candid snapshots, internal memos, press releases and much more.
Black Lives Matter, The Killing of George Floyd, and the Long Fight For Racial Justice – Interactive Timeline
In order to better understand this history and the positions of Black activists and social movements today, it is useful to examine significant recent events leading up to the present. The timeline in this lesson provides an overview of many leading people and social movements that steered towards racial equality in the United States beginning in the 1950s and continues to the present.
Brown History
United Farm Workers Movement
The Farmworker Movement Documentation Project, founded in 2003 by LeRoy Chatfield, is a labor of love. The project seeks to compile and publish primary source accounts from the volunteers who worked with Cesar Chavez to build his farmworker movement during the period, 1962-1993.
Bracero Archive
The Bracero History Archive collects and makes available the oral histories and artifacts pertaining to the Bracero program, a guest worker initiative that spanned the years 1942-1964. Millions of Mexican agricultural workers crossed the border under the program to work in more than half of the states in America.
Voces Oral History Project
Voces Oral History Center is the leading Latino oral history archive in the United States. It began in 1999, with a mission of capturing untold stories of Latinos and Latinas who served, in the military or on the home front, during World War II. Our archive has expanded to include the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and Political and Civic Engagement, focusing on the continuing fight for Latino civil rights.
Tejano Voices
Tejano Voices presents the personal recollections of 173 Tejanos and Tejanas and their struggle against racial discrimination in post-World War II Texas.
Vietnam War: Mexican American Songs
Mexican-American songs about the Vietnam War. This includes songs from the Chicano movement, Tex-Mex, Tejano, and other sub-genres performed by Mexican-Americans.
Latino Civil Rights Timeline, 1903-2006
When reading this timeline, it’s important to remember that the fight for civil rights doesn’t happen in a vacuum. In many cases, the events listed below have fueled—and have been fueled by—other social justice movements, like the African American Civil Rights Movement and the fight for equal employment and education among Chinese and Japanese immigrants.
Local Black and Brown History
Latino Fort Worth Oral History – YouTube Channel
In 2015, a team of researchers with the Civil Rights in Black and Brown Oral History Project at TCU interviewed dozens of Fort Worth residents at a pair of events sponsored by the City of Fort Worth Human Relations Unit. The result is Viva Mi Historia: The Story of Fort Worth Latino Families. The purpose was to collect and curate an inclusive history of Latino Fort Worth told from the perspective of the residents who lived it.
Civil Rights in Black and Brown
Not one but two civil rights movements flourished in mid-twentieth century Texas, and they did so in intimate conversation with one another. While most research on American race relations has utilized a binary analytical lens – examining either “black” vs. “white” or “Anglo” vs. “Mexican” – the Civil Rights in Black and Brown Oral History Project collects, interprets, and disseminates new oral history interviews with members of all three groups.
Viva Mi Historia: The Story of Fort Worth Latino Families
Segments of those interviews have been woven into six multi-media essays organized by theme: Migration, the Barrios, Schools & Churches, Activism & Public Service, Work & Entrepreneurship, and Arts & Culture. On each of these essay pages, visitors are able to hear many different voices telling their own stories.
BlackPast – Fort Worth
In the article, Fort Worth historian Richard Selcer introduces us to the African American community which has been a presence in this city since its founding in 1849.
Fort Worth Public Library Digital Archives
The Fort Worth Library Digital Archives has several collections focusing on Black and Brown history.
¡Viva La Raza!: Documenting Tarrant County’s Mexicano Activism
We created this website to inform others about the movement and present people’s first hand views of the Mexicano experience and fight for justice in Fort Worth.
Articles from HOLA Tarrant County members
Formed out of a desire to create a history of Latinas and Latinos in Tarrant County, The Historians Of Latino Americans (HOLA), a non-profit organization aims to research, document, and archive our work and to share it with the community. Our hope is that this information will lead to a better understanding and appreciation of the role that Latinas and Latinos have played in the civil, educational, and cultural history of our county.
Memories of Poly
Created by TCU history graduate students based on original research and oral history interviews of community members of Polytechnic Heights.
Pauline and Louis, A Film by Richard J. Gonzales
After Pauline Valenciano and two daughters are arrested at a Fort Worth grocery store for protesting the market’s refusal to sell United Farm Workers Union produce, mother and girls are separated. In the jail cell, she seeks answers to their whereabouts and contemplates whether her activism has compromised her role as a good mother. She knows the need for more Chicanas in La Causa, but at what cost to her family. Louis Zapata enjoys his life of luxury in Mexico City, working on a Bell Helicopter assignment to the US State Department. When he receives calls to return to Fort Worth to run for city council, he faces a dilemma. Born and raised in “El Pozo” the hole, he has climbed to a comfortable lifestyle. However, he’s been separated from his family for two years and there’s no guarantee he’ll win office. If he were elected, the city’s North Side would have its first Latino representative and hopefully bring much-needed dollars to their long-neglected neighborhoods. Pauline and Louis weigh the costs in service to the Latino community.
African American History Self-Guided Tour
Fort Worth history is a quilt with cowboys and cowgirls, the first African American millionaire in Texas, William “Gooseneck” McDonald, and jazz legends such as Ornette Coleman. Explore and learn more on this self-guided tour of the city’s top heritage sites.
Generaciones, Expressions of Brown Identity in Fort Worth: Gilbert C. Garcia, 1900-1990
Multimedia presentation of the political generations of Mexican Americans in Fort Worth through the lens of Gilbert C. Garcia.
Cecilia N Sánchez Hill 