During the University’s recognition of African American History Month, students and visitors might wish to learn more about the Civil Rights Movement as it took place on a local level here in Houston. A good place to start is with the Thomas R. Cole Desegregation Papers in Special Collections.
Thomas R. Cole was Creator and Executive Producer of a 1997 film documentary called The Strange Demise of Jim Crow, which traces the unique desegregation process and civil rights struggles that occurred in Houston in the 1950s-1960s. Part of the Houston History Archives, the Cole collection consists of 19 boxes of very rich material, including drafts of film scripts, topical files on significant segregation issues, film project proposals, correspondence, publicity material, and a photocopy of Negro Politics and the Rise of the Civil Rights Movement in Houston, Texas (1968), a dissertation by Franklin Chandler Davidson.
The 57-minute DVD The Strange Demise of Jim Crow is available for checkout in the main library and for viewing in the Special Collections Reading Room.
For more information about what is contained in the Thomas R. Cole Desegregation Papers, be sure to take a look at the finding aid. The original materials can be viewed in the Special Collections Reading Room.