BPL Virtual Resources African-American Database Spotlight: C.T. Vivian

Background: The BPL Virtual Resources Spotlight is a new blog highlighting the Birmingham Public Library’s vast free online resources available to serve the public. Today, we spotlight Cordell Tindell (C.T.) Vivian, a veteran civil rights leader who died at age 95 last Friday.

The Birmingham Public Library is ALWAYS open 24/7 through our FREE online digital resources. For more about BPL’s virtual resources, click on  http://www.bplonline.org/virtual 

Want to learn more about the Rev. C.T. Vivian, a civil rights trailblazer who died at age 95 last Friday? Vivian is among the historical figures available in BPL’s African American Database, which was featured in our BPL Virtual Resources Spotlight last week.

Although not as widely known today as Congressman John Lewis, the Alabama-native who died of cancer at age 80 last Saturday, Vivian had a major influence on Lewis. The two first met when Vivian as a young minister helped mentor Lewis when he was a member of the Student Nonviolent Committee.

Vivian, born Cordy Tindell Vivian in Missouri in 1924, was a minister and activist who was arrested numerous times in the Deep South. He gained worldwide attention leading a 1965 protest for voting rights in Selma, Ala, when a sheriff sucker-punched him in the face live on television.

In a tribute to Vivian upon his death, NPR quoted the Rev. Jackson, who said Vivian was a mentor.

"He was one of the tallest trees in the civil rights forest," Rev. Jesse Jackson tweeted Friday, calling Vivian a mentor. "He never stopped dreaming. He never stopped fighting. We are better because he came this way."

The Rev. C.T. Vivian as young minister. 

Vivian was a leading member of the Freedom Riders, a loose collection of black and white activists who took rode interstate buses to protest segregated bus terminals — and often suffered beatings and arrests as a result.

Vivian is the author of the Black Power and the American Myth, a 1969 book called one of the first comprehensive accounts of the civil rights movement.

In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded Vivian the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Below are some of the resources about Vivian in our BPL database.

African-American History Online

African-American History Online covers topics such as affirmative action, Africa, black nationalism, civil rights, emancipation, free blacks, the Harlem Renaissance, migrations, racial violence and hate crimes, religion, slave living conditions, slave liberation strategies, social work and philanthropy, sports, and visual arts.

Click below to watch a video of Vivian leading protests for voting rights in Selma 


 Oxford African American Studies Center 

Contemporary Black Biography has biographical profiles of the important and influential persons of African American heritage This site has lots of resources about John Lewis, Vivian and others

Read C.T. (Cordy Tindell) Vivia’s bio by searching his name after clicking here

Click here for a link to interviews with Vivian sharing his recollection of the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, the late Birmingham civil rights pioneer