It was the Great Depression. Nine young black men were hoboing, riding a freight train to Memphis, Tennessee in search of work, but their ride was cut short. At Scottsboro, Alabama the police hauled them off the train: the young men, ages 13 to 21, were accused of raping two white women who were on the train. For black men in the 1930s in the Deep South, such a charge could be fatal. Like so many others who had died by trial or lynching, the Scottsboro Boys (as they came to be called) were falsely accused, a fact that meant almost nothing. In March, 1931 eight of them were sentenced to death, while the fate of the ninth, 13-year-old Roy Wright, hovered dangerously close to life in prison before ending in a mistrial.

In the midst of all of today's pageantry, it's worth taking a step back and looking at what President Obama has done with his first term, especially when it comes to civil rights. Jared Ball is associate professor of communication studies at Morgan State University. Ron Christie is a Republican political strategist.

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Chinese civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng talks about his work on human rights in China, his new life in the United States, and his views on the Chinese government. Joining him is Chinese law expert Jerome Cohen, professor of law at New York University School of Law and a senior fellow for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Ira Belkin, executive director of the U.S. Asia Law Institute at NYU School of Law, interprets Chen's remarks.

In 1961, a radio reporter named Eleanor Fischer spoke to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for a CBC called Project 62. As far as we know, these unedited interviews have never been presented in their entirety until now.

The New York Civil Liberties Union is charging that the state’s practice of sending people into solitary confinement for non-violent crimes is a violation of civil rights.

Let me preface this by saying that if the Baltimore Ravens stadium were on fire, and I had just finished drinking a six pack of beer, as a Redskins fan I would do nothing to help put the fire out.

Supreme Court lawyer Linda Hirshman tells the story of the gay rights movement, detailing how a dedicated and resourceful minority changed America. Her book Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution recounts the long roads that led to recent victories—from the start of modern struggle for gay rights at Stonewall in 1969 to states legalizing gay marriage, the armed services stopped enforcing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and the recent ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act.

United States Congressman John Lewis discusses how his experience as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement can offer guidance on how to live virtuously and work to change the world. In Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change, Lewis revisits the lessons of the 1960s to help the electorate once again confront questions of social inequality.

Sanford, Florida, where 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by 27-year-old George Zimmerman over one month ago, is currently host to the worst kind of attention a small town could possibly imagine. After weeks of protests around the country, the question lingers as to whether the small town's image will be eternally marred the way that Selma or Birmingham, Alabama still evoke the civil rights movement of the 1960s. What connection does this town have to the long history of the American civil rights movement? For answers, we turn to Isabel Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of "The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration."

From May to December 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives by traveling together through the Deep South, deliberately violating Jim Crow laws. These Freedom Riders’ beliefs in non-violent activism was tested as violence and racism greeted them. Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr., cofounder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and participant in the Freedom Rides, and Gerald Stern, who was a young civil rights lawyer in the Justice Department at the time, discuss the Freedom Riders actions and the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and look at the legacy of the movement today.

In 2011, PBS released Stanley Nelson’s American Experience documentary film Freedom Riders.

It all started with dinner.

In 2004 my husband, John, and I were celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary. That night we were the only Black people at Tru, a five-star restaurant in Chicago’s ultra-exclusive Gold Coast neighborhood. Instead of enjoying the romance of the moment, though, I ruined it by bringing up the discouraging status of Blacks in America. Although we moved on to other topics, they all seemed to lead us back to how fortunate we were and how we should be doing more to help improve the situation— The Black Situation.

On Monday, ground will be broken on the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. This $500 million project is just one of the many being erected in major cities dedicated to African American history and the civil rights movement: Atlanta, Jackson and Charleston all have projects in the works. These projects mark an emerging era of scholarship and interest in the history of the civil rights movement, providing the public with new insights.

In 1961 Malcolm X came to Brown University to publicly rebut an article published in the school newspaper that criticized the Nation of Islam. Fast-forward to 2011. A Brown University student was assigned to create a historical narrative using anything in the school library and stumbled across one of the oldest recordings of Malcolm X in existence, heard by virtually no one since its initial taping.

In anticipation of the MLK event this weekend at the Brooklyn Museum, we ask: What would it take to make quality education a civil right for all Americans? Is it already?

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David Margolick tells the story of Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery, two women whose names might not be well known, but whose image surely is. The famed photo taken of them in September 1957 shows Elizabeth, a black high school girl, dressed in white, walking in front of Little Rock Central High School, while Hazel, a white girl standing directly behind her, face twisted in hate, screams racial epithets. In Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock Margolick tells the story behind the photograph, which captures an epic moment in the civil rights movement.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was in Austin, Texas Tuesday night where he promised the Justice Department's civil rights division will aggressively review new voter ID laws that civil rights advocates say will have a discriminatory impact. This puts the Justice Department smack in the middle of a growing partisan debate over civil rights and minorities' access to the ballot. Several states, including Texas, have passed new requirements requiring voters to present photo ID before casting their vote. 

Fred Shuttlesworth, a civil rights leader who helped bring Birmingham, Alabama to the forefront of the civil rights movement. Shuttlesworth worked alongside Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., died on Wednesday at age 89. Shuttlesworth often spoke publicly against the violence that was prevalent in the South at that time, and founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.