Bookmark this page or copy and paste URL to Email message

Civil Rights Protest Photographs 1962-circa 1967

UP UPC 327: 34

Historical Note

When the Civil Rights movement began in Arizona in the late 1940s, Phoenix was widely considered the "Mississippi of the West" due to its extensive and entrenched racial segregation. Civil Rights activists like Lincoln and Eleanor Ragsdale, William Mahoney, Fred Holmes, Eugene and Thomasena Grigsby, Rev. George Brooks, and Rabbi Albert Plotkin, working with organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Greater Phoenix Council for Civic Unity, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Urban League, began by working to desegregate Phoenix's schools. Hayzel Daniels introduced a bill allowing schools to voluntarily desegregate in 1951 and Superior Court Judge Fred Struckmeyer declared segregation unconstitutional in 1953. Work to desegregate such public accommodations as hotels and restaurants also began in the early 1950s. These efforts succeeded in 1964 when both the Arizona legislature and the Phoenix City Council passed public accommodations laws in advance of the national Civil Rights Act. Civil Rights activists were also involved in preventing discrimination in employment and preserving the right to vote for minorities, who were frequently intimidated at the polls and improperly excluded from voting rolls.

The Ragsdales were particularly active in the movement to end redlining. They circumvented restrictions on housing by having a white friend purchase their home at 1606 West Thomas Road, well north of the black neighborhoods in Central Phoenix. Although they faced discrimination in this neighborhood (indeed, the police frequently stopped Lincoln Ragsdale on his way home from work because he looked "suspicious"), they lived in this home for seventeen years. Eleanor Ragsdale also became a real estate agent and helped other black families move into neighborhoods they had previously been excluded from.

In 1964, Phoenix Mayor Milton H. Graham created Leadership and Education for the Advancement of Phoenix (LEAP) to act as a clearinghouse for funding intended to improve conditions in the city's poorest neighborhoods. LEAP became a city department charged with administering War on Poverty funds in 1966. Discrimination and racial tension persisted, however, and erupted into a riot in South Phoenix on July 26, 1967. Rev. Brooks met with protesters, who he convinced to meet with Mayor Graham. In this meeting, Graham agreed to work to obtain more funding for improving education and fighting poverty.

Scope and Content Note

This collection houses seven photographs depicting at least two protests held by African-American civil rights activists at the Arizona State Capitol.

Arrangement

Restrictions

Access Restrictions

To view this collection, make an appointment at least five business days prior to your visit by contacting Ask an Archivist or calling (480) 965-4932. Appointments in the Wurzburger Reading Room at Hayden Library (rm. 138) on the Tempe campus are available Monday through Friday. Check the ASU Library Hours page for current availability.

Copyright

Arizona State University does not own the copyright to this collection. We recognize that it is incumbent upon the researcher to procure permission to publish information from this collection from the owner of the copyright.

Access Terms

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Civil Rights Protest Photographs, UP UPC 327: 34, Arizona State University Library.

Provenance

Images courtesy of Dr. Matthew Whitaker (ASU Faculty) and Lincoln Ragsdale Jr. (Informant).

Container List