Class Visits Martin Luther King Jr. Institute

Last week, Ms. Cook’s Social Movements in American History class traveled to Stanford University to visit the Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute. The purpose of the visit was to allow students to conduct research in the King archives, a collection of thousands of speeches, sermons, letters, and other historic documents by and about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement. After touring the King Institute with Associate Director, Tenisha Armstrong, the students were given an orientation by King Institute research assistants on using the King records database. Aidan Terry, who is researching the influence of celebrities on the civil rights movements, found a letter by Nat King Cole to King, in which Cole offers to hold a benefit concert to help raise money for the movement. Jake Ragen, who is examining the influence of the Cold War on the civil rights movement, found a collection of FBI memos by J. Edgar Hoover expressing concern about the communist presence in the NAACP. (Jake joked that all the most important passages in the memos had been blacked out.) Alex Zheng was excited to find a letter from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Jackie Robinson, in which King told Robinson, ‘‘You have made every Negro in America proud through your baseball prowess and your inflexible demand for equal opportunity for all.’’


Following the research session, the class had lunch at Stanford’s Tressider Student Union and then returned for a lecture and discussion with King Institute Director and Professor of History, Clayborne Carson. Dr. Carson talked with the students about King’s influence on social movements around the world and then answered questions about their specific research topics. Janaya Reid, who is interested in the influence of Malcolm X on the residents of Harlem in the 1960s, said Carson’s feedback on her research was very helpful. She and Hayley Harrison - who is comparing the American civil rights movement to the Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa – both expressed appreciation for Dr. Carson’s willingness to discuss their research topics with them and make recommendations for additional sources. Professor Carson was impressed with the students’ research interests, stating, “These sound like graduate student topics.”

Ms. Cook’s students will continue their research over the next few weeks in preparation for writing a final research paper that will serve as the capstone for the course.
 
Click on the link below to watch a video about the visit:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qstOzbI0FOM