Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall's 100th birthday is today, July 2, 2008.

These books are available (some electronically) to help you celebrate:

• Making Civil Rights Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1936-1961 (1994)
• Making Constitutional Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1961-1991 (1997)
• Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey (2008)
• Against the Death Penalty: The Relentless Dissents of Justice Brennan and Marshall (1996)
• Thurgood Marshall: Champion of Civil Rights (1993)
• Dream Makers, Dream Breakers: The World of Justice Thurgood Marshall (1993)
• Justices William J. Brennan, Jr. and Thurgood Marshall on Capital Punishment: Its Constitutionality, Morality, Deterrent Effect, and Interpretation by the Court (1997)
  

June 19th is celebrated as Black Independence Day--the day that Black residents of Galveston, Texas learned of their freedom in 1865.  The day has come to be known as Juneteenth, and is celebrated throughout the United States.

The Root, Henry Louis Gates' web site, has a good Primer on Black Independence Day.  You can also come to the library and check out and read Ralph Ellison's novel, Juneteenth.

You might also find the following titles interesting--they approach the issues of slavery and freedom from unique perspectives: Rebels, Reformers, & Revolutionaries: Collected Essays and Second Thoughts;  Wounds of Returning: Race, Memory, and Property on the Postslavery Plantation; and Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth-Century America.  These are just some of the many resources our library offers on slavery and emancipation.  Find more using GULLiver.

Early this morning an NPR commentator marked today as the anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010
(U.S.Va. Jun 12, 1967), reversing convictions for violating a state ban on interracial marriage. We are a freer people.
Likewise today the historic ruling in Boumediene v. Bush.
"that the petitioners at GTMO have a constitutional right to petition for habeas corpus and that the DTA/MCA process of D.C. Circuit review from CSRT decisions is not an adequate alternative to habeas."
In addition to this ruling in Boumediene, which is filled with the results of some clarified British legal history research that warms the heart of any curator of historical materials, the court also handed down The Republic of the Philippines v. Pimentel (re to determine ownership of funds allegedly misappropriated by Ferdinand Marcos
during his reign as Philippine president) and Munaf (US Citizens can challenge their detentions in Iraq).
Mark Wojcik called it a "trifecta" on the International Law Prof Blog, but his links go via Cornell and are interposed with a plea for a donation to LII. Most worthwhile, but unless you are a son or daughter of Cornell, today may not be the day you want to pause. All are posted at ScotusBlog, nudge-free.


and there will be an "Insta-Symposium" on Boumediene, as annouced at Opinio Juris.

The University of Georgia's new Civil Rights Digital Library provides organized access to the resources of nearly 100 digital collections to provide a single source for online civil rights research.

The excellent interface allows browsing (Events, People, Places, Topics, Collections) and searching of the collections. There are articles, photographs, legal and government documents, moving images, posters, broadsides and other sources (see the complete list of media types).  The collections of the Thurgood Marshall Law Library at the University of Maryland, the Tarlton Law Library at the University of Texas, Yale Law School, and the Virginia Center for Digital History Information at U.Va. are just a few of those included (click here to see more).

Portions of the Congressional Record that have never been online are now available on HeinOnline.  Currently, volumes 1-69 (1873-1928) and 121-182 (1975-2007) are online and fully searchable. 

For the first time, legal researchers can use online searching techniques to analyze congressional debates on legal topics that are still relevant today such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Ethics in Government Act. 

Hein is adding more volumes of the Congressional Record; soon congressional debates on other ground-breaking legislation such as ERISA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Voting Rights Act will be available. 

Georgetown users can access the Congressional Record online from anywhere.  Newer volumes of the Congressional Record  (1994 forward) are freely available from GPO Access, while a few of the first volumes are freely available online from the Library of Congress.

Two Washington-area PBS Networks will broadcast Prince Among Slaves beginning Monday, February 4, as part of the organization's Black History Month programming.  The one-hour program begins at 10pm on WETA, Channel 26, and MPT, Channel 22, and will be re-aired throughout the month.

Read more at the Los Angeles Times.