This collection presents approximately twelve hours of opinions recorded in the days and months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, from more than two hundred individuals in cities and towns across the United States. A second set of recordings, in which the interviewees were asked to address their thoughts and opinions on the attack and the declaration of war directly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was made under the auspices of the Office of Emergency Management in January and February 1942.

The Civil Rights History Project Collection presents interviews with activists from a wide range of occupations, including lawyers, judges, doctors, farmers, journalists, professors, and musicians, among others. The video recordings of their recollections cover a wide range of topics within the freedom struggle, such as the influence of the labor movement, nonviolence and self-defense, religious faith, music, and the experiences of young activists.

The September 11, 2001 Documentary Project captures the reactions, eyewitness accounts, and diverse opinions of Americans and others in the months that followed the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United Airlines Flight 93. Patriotism and unity mixed with sadness, anger, and insecurity are common themes expressed in this online presentation of almost 200 audio and video interviews, 45 graphic items, and 21 written narratives.

In 1940 and 1941 Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin documented the everyday life of migrant workers in Farm Security Administration (FSA) migrant work camps in central California. The collection includes interviews, songs, music, stories, poetry, and recordings of meetings of members of the camps. The majority of workers were refugees from the dust bowl conditions of the Midwest. This is available online as Voices from the Dust Bowl: The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Workers Collection, 1940-1941.

The recordings of former slaves in Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories took place between 1932 and 1975 in nine states. Twenty-three interviewees discuss how they felt about slavery, slaveholders, coercion of slaves, their families, and freedom. Several individuals sing songs, many of which were learned during the time of their enslavement.

The centuries-long battle to obtain equal rights, social justice and full citizenship for African Americans reached its peak during the "modern civil rights movement" in the latter half of the 20th century. Voter registration drives, community empowerment initiatives, civil disobedience campaigns, legal challenges and other actions generated change in many arenas of American society and culture. Critical moments from that era are illuminated through the personal testimonies of those who fought to secure fundamental rights for their fellow Americans...and survived to tell their stories. The oral histories by activists are drawn from the Civil Rights History Project collection (CRHP), a joint initiative of the Library's American Folklife Center (AFC) and the Smithsonian National Museum for African American History and Culture.