“Five score years ago a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand today signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree is a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity….

… When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be granted the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check… But … we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation….

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.”

… There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwind of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our Nation until the bright day of justice emerges...

We are not aware of any other example in private hands, and only six institutions list runs that should include this issue. 

This issue of the United Church of Christ’s Youth magazine includes an article entitled, “Teens interview Martin Luther King,” which took place during a National Conference on Christian Education at Purdue University in Indiana. A group of teens held a press conference with Dr. King.He answered questions on a wide variety of topics, including segregation, Little Rock, inter-racial marriage, the possibility of another Civil War, and the effect of the movement on his family. He also advised the students on how they might take positive actions on civil rights in their own hometowns.

This tract provides an example of the laws “notoriously forced upon the people of that Territory, at the hands of invading ruffians from Missouri, using the persuasive arguments of the Bowie-Knife and Revolver....” Included are the three Presidential platforms for the 1856 election, and a special map: “Freedom and Slavery, and the Coveted Territories,” printed on the last page.

Best known for his seminal Birds of America, Audubon’s prints are among the world’s most recognized images.

Congressional attorney Elmer W. Henderson, a hero of the early civil rights movement, congratulates African American chemist Lloyd A. Hall for a recent professional honor. In 1955, Hall also became the first African American elected to the National Board of Directors of the American Institute of Chemists (AIC). The following year, the AIC awarded Hall the Honor Scroll Award. On special occasions, the AIC invites a prominent chemist or chemical engineer to lecture to the Members and Fellows of the AIC on a topic of professional interest. In September 1957, Hall delivered a lecture on “The Chemist and the AIC,” likely the occasion for this congratulatory letter from Henderson a few months later.

“What they may turn out to be I cannot say, but should like the liberty of choice when the time comes…”