GSU Library Research Guides: Civil Rights in Georgia for 8th Grade Georgia Studies Students: Historical Research

What is a primary source?

A primary source is original information, often created during the time period of study, rather than an interpretation or analysis of the information. Examples of primary resources include documents, diaries, manuscripts, autobiographies, sound recordings, newspapers, and images. These primary sources can be in print or electronic format.

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Free Online Primary Research Sources

GSU Archives Digital Collections Georgia State University's interdisciplinary, multimedia digital collections support the research and instructional needs of the GSU community. These collections provide centralized access to GSU's diverse inventory of legacy and teaching collections for purposes of instruction, scholarship, and archival preservation.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (1789-1924) Selected newspapers from 1789-1922, from the Library of Congress.
Civil Rights Digital Library The struggle for racial equality in the 1950s and 1960s is among the most far-reaching social movements in the nation's history, and it represents a crucial step in the evolution of American democracy. The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale. The CRDL features a collection of unedited news film from the WSB (Atlanta) and WALB (Albany, Ga.) television archives held by the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia Libraries. The CRDL provides educator resources and contextual materials, including Freedom on Film, relating instructive stories and discussion questions from the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia, and the New Georgia Encyclopedia, delivering engaging online articles and multimedia.
Digital Library of Georgia The Digital Library of Georgia is a gateway to Georgia's history and culture found in digitized books, manuscripts, photographs, government documents, newspapers, maps, audio, video, and other resources.
Digital Public Library of America DPLA connects people to the riches held within America’s libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions. All of the materials found through DPLA—photographs, books, maps, news footage, oral histories, personal letters, museum objects, artwork, government documents, and so much more—are free and immediately available in digital format. The cultural institutions participating in DPLA represent the richness and diversity of America itself, from the smallest local history museum to our nation’s largest cultural institutions. Our core work includes bringing new collections and partners into DPLA, building our technology, and managing projects that further our mission through curation, education, and community building.
Documenting the American South Documenting the American South (DocSouth) is a digital publishing initiative that provides Internet access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. Currently Sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's University Library, DocSouth includes sixteen thematic collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.
Internet Archive The Internet Archive saves materials from the web, including prior versions of websites, and other web history.
UmbraSearch: African-American History Online portal of African-American history sources, including more than 400,000 digitized materials from over 1,000 libraries and archives across the US.

What is a secondary source?

Secondary sources are usually books and journal articles that are interpretations of events written after examining primary source materials. They can also be found in a variety of mediums.

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Students can search their school library or public library for holdings of print books. For more information on your school's library check with your media specialist.

Research Guide for Interpreting Secondary Sources