Snap Fact #159

In order to bring knowledge to the public and support the educational system, the Civil Rights History Project Act was introduced by Hillary Clinton (Democratic Senator, New York) in 2008 and failed to pass. It was reintroduced in January of 2009 shortly after President Obama moved into the White House. With Hillary no longer there to carry the flag, Carolyn McCarthy (Democratic Senator, New York), along with Sanford Bishop and John Lewis of Georgia, reintroduced the Bill with identical wording. By April of 2009 it sailed through both houses of Congress by nearly unanimous counts. This Bill was signed into law by President Obama on May 11, 2009. 

Specifically, the legislation funds a five-year initiative to direct the Library of Congress and the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution with the National Museum of African American History, to conduct the project in order to collect artifacts, videos, oral histories, and records of personal testimonies of those people who lived through the Civil Rights Movement between 1954 and 1968. 

“While the Civil Rights movement had many visible leaders, including Thurgood Marshall, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks, there were many others whose impact and experience were just as important to the cause but who are not as well known,” reads the Civil Rights History Project Act of 2009.