From slavery and Reconstruction to Jim Crow, from the civil rights movement to the present day, Mississippi has been a focal point in the history of American race relations. The disenfranchisement of African Americans in Mississippi and other states in the American South consistently met with resistance. Throughout the Jim Crow era, a small group of black citizens waged campaigns against lynching, electoral disenfranchisement, and segregation in education and public accommodations. These efforts grew following World War II, when large numbers of returning black veterans joined the movement to win at home the liberty they had defended overseas. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision ending de jure segregation in public schools touched off a wave of pro-and anti-integration activism. Groups such as the Citizens' Council formed and spread across the South to fight for the preservation of segregation, while in 1960 a sit-in movement led by black college students was born, using non-violent direct action to accelerate the implementation of civil rights. The town of Oxford, Mississippi, and The University of Mississippi played an important role in this history when the era of integration in Mississippi began in 1962 with the enrollment of James H. Meredith, the University's first African American student.

In the early 1960s, civil rights groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Southern Christian Leadership Council began massive efforts across the South to win voting rights, eventually leading to the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The struggle to implement the Brown decision, as well as these newly-enacted laws, continued well into the late 1960s and 1970s, with the election of black representatives and widespread desegregation of public schools. The federal government's anti-poverty programs created opportunities for addressing the poverty affecting much of the black community, providing funding for Head Start and economic development. In the late 1960s, the Black Power movement arose in cities north and south among young African Americans frustrated by the slow pace of change. While the civil rights movement led to significant transformations in race relations, opponents of civil rights have continued to make their voices heard. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s and up to the present day, there continue to be debates over issues such as affirmative action, public school funding, reparations for slavery, black nationalism, white supremacy, welfare and government relief programs, and multiculturalism.

The Race Relations Collection consists of printed material and manuscripts that document race relations, civil rights, black power, white supremacist groups, and multiculturalism throughout the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present day. The bulk of material focuses on The University of Mississippi and the state of Mississippi from the 1950s to 1980s. Formats represented in the collection include newspapers, newsletters, broadsides, reports, memoranda, pamphlets, publications, articles, reprints, programs, and ephemera. In addition, there are a limited number of manuscripts and letters.

Box 1 contains material from 1956 to 1989 documenting race relations in Oxford and at The University of Mississippi. Topics covered include pro-and anti-integration viewpoints, the enrollment of James Meredith, black student demonstrations, the Black Student Union, and segregation in fraternities and sororities.

Boxes 2, 3, and 9 cover race relations and civil rights in the state of Mississippi from 1948 to 1988, plus three items from 1885, 1894, and 1937. Topics and organizations covered include Senator James O. Eastland, Friends of Segregated Public Schools, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Emmett Till, Judge Thomas P. Brady, Clennon King, Governor John Bell Williams, Byron de la Beckwith, the Republican Party of Mississippi, Mississippi Action for Community Education, private academies, and other subjects related to integration. In addition to these printed materials, there are two nineteenth-century manuscripts, an 1885 manuscript of a poem by N. H. Ensley of Alcorn College and an 1894 letter discussing Ida B. Wells, and a set of postcards featuring African American images from 1937.

Boxes 4 and 5 contain materials from 1948 to 1995 addressing civil rights, race and religion, anti-communism, black power, and integration across the country, with an emphasis on southern states. Organizations represented include the Citizens' Council of Memphis, the Southern National Party, the Republic of New Africa, the Southern Regional Council, and civil rights groups in South Carolina and Tennessee.

Boxes 6, 7, and 8 contain oversize materials that pertain to race relations at The University of Mississippi, in the state of Mississippi, and other parts of the country from 1952 to 1994. Box 6 consists of broadsides, posters, and newspapers related to various organizations, including copies of the Confederate Underground from the 1990s. Boxes 7 and 8 contain a range of local and regional newspapers, most published by groups dedicated to civil rights, white power, or southern nationalism.

The collection is divided into four parts:

Local-Oxford/University (Box 1)

State (Boxes 2-3, 9)

Non-Mississippi (Boxes 4-5)

Oversize (Boxes 6-8)

The majority of items are arranged in rough chronological order.

This collection is protected from unauthorized copying by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code).

The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use", that user may be liable for copyright infringement.