Center for Constitutional Rights Records

Call Number

TAM.589

Date

1959-2010, inclusive

Creator

Center for Constitutional Rights (New York, N.Y.)

Extent

240.5 Linear Feet

in 234 record cartons and 13 manuscript boxes

Extent

6 websites

in 6 archived websites.

Language of Materials

Materials are in English.

Abstract

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a non-profit legal advocacy organization based in New York City. The Center was initially established to provide legal services and financial support to lawyers representing civil rights movement activists in Mississippi, but has since broaded its focus to civil liberties and human rights activism and litigation more generally. This unprocessed collection of records created or collected by CCR consists of correspondence, political ephemera, newspaper clippings, websites, research files, and legal documents, including briefs, motions, and trial transcripts documenting the organization's legal advocacy.

Historical Note

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a non-profit legal advocacy organization based on New York City. It was founded in 1966 by civil rights lawyers and legal activists, including William Kuntsler, Morton Stavis, Arthur Kinoy, and Ben Smith. The Center was initially established to provide legal services and financial support to lawyers representing civil rights movement activists in Mississippi. Since then, CCR has broadened its focus to civil liberties and human rights activism and litigation more generally, providing legal assistance to a variety of clients, including Guantanamo Bay detainment camp prisoners and victims of racial profiling in the wake of 9/11.

Arrangement

This collection has not been arranged by an archivist. The order in which these materials were sent to the Tamiment Library has been maintained.

Scope and Content Note

This unprocessed collection of records created or collected by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) consists of correspondence, political ephemera, newspaper clippings, websites, research files, audiovisual and digital media, and legal documents, including briefs, motions, and trial transcripts documenting the organization's legal advocacy.

Subjects

Topics

Civil rights -- United States.; Legal services -- New York (State) -- New York.; Lawyers -- Political activity.; Civil rights -- New York (State) -- New York.

Conditions Governing Access

Materials are open to researchers with the exception of restricted materials. Restricted materials in this collection include those protected by attorney-client privilege and/or containing personally identifiable information. Restricted materials are located in the following boxes: 67, 143, 174, 179-183, 185-246.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright (and related rights to publicity and privacy) to materials in this collection, created by the Center for Constitutional Rights, was not transferred to New York University. Permission to use materials must be secured from the copyright holder.

Preferred Citation

Identification of item, date; Center for Constitutional Rights Records; TAM 589; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.

To cite the archived website in this collection: Identification of item, date; Center for Constitutional Rights Records; TAM 589; Wayback URL; Repository Name, New York University.

Location of Materials

Materials in this collection are stored offsite and advance notice is required for their use. Please contact special.collections@nyu.edu at least two business days prior to visiting the library.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Materials were transferred from New York Public Library's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in 2012; additional materials were also donated in 2012.

http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/home.asp was initially selected by curators and captured through the use of The California Digital Library's Web Archiving Service in 2007 as part of the Other Left Activism Web Archive. http://www.ccrjustice.org/ was added in 2008. http://ccrjustice.org/cases-issue was added in 2009 as part of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp & War Crimes (U.S.) Web Archive. https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/active-cases was added in 2015. In 2015, these website were migrated to Archive-It. Archive-It uses web crawling technology to capture websites at a scheduled time and displays only an archived copy, from the resulting WARC file, of the website. In 2020, https://www.alecattacks.org/ was added to the Other Left Activism Web Archive. The accession number associated with this website is 2020.032. In December 2020, https://www.foiabasics.org/ was added. The accession number associated with this website is 2021.059. In September 2021, https://docs.google.com/document/d/176Yds1p63Q3iaKilw0luChMzlJhODdiPvF2I4g9eIXo/edit was added. The accession number associated with this website is 2022.014.

Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures

Access to audiovisual materials in this collection is available through digitized access copies. Researchers may view an item's original container, but the media themselves are not available for playback because of preservation concerns. Materials that have already been digitized are noted in the collection's finding aid and can be requested in our reading room. To request an access copy, or if you are unsure if an item has been digitized, please contact special.collections@nyu.edu with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.

Appraisal

Archived websites are made accessible for purposes of education and research. NYU Libraries have given attribution to rights holders when possible; however, due to the nature of archival collections, we are not always able to identify this information.

If you hold the rights to materials in our archived websites that are unattributed, please let us know so that we may maintain accurate information about these materials.

If you are a rights holder and are concerned that you have found material on this website for which you have not granted permission (or is not covered by a copyright exception under US copyright laws), you may request the removal of the material from our site by submitting a notice, with the elements described below, to the special.collections@nyu.edu.

Please include the following in your notice: Identification of the material that you believe to be infringing and information sufficient to permit us to locate the material; your contact information, such as an address, telephone number, and email address; a statement that you are the owner, or authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed and that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement that the information in the notification is accurate and made under penalty of perjury; and your physical or electronic signature. Upon receiving a notice that includes the details listed above, we will remove the allegedly infringing material from public view while we assess the issues identified in your notice.

Related Archival Materials

National Lawyers Guild Records (TAM 191)

Victor Rabinowitz Papers (TAM 123)

Other Finding Aids

The inventories used to create the container list below were not exhaustive; please contact Special Collections to for information about more comprehensive inventories.

Collection processed by

Rachel Searcy

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2023-08-20 16:38:02 -0400.

Using Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Language: Description is written in: English, Latin script.

Processing Information

This collection has not been arranged by an archivist. Box-level inventories have been imported to provide basic description of the materials.

In 2020 and 2021, additional web archiving descriptive and administrative information was added as well as additional websites to the collection.

Revisions to this Guide

February 2022: Edited by Nicole Greenhouse to reflect additional administrative information and added archived websites

September 2022 - January 2023: Edited by Rachel Mahre to reflect that audio materials are digitized and accessible to patrons

May 2023: Edited by Anna Björnsson McCormick to revise language regarding other inventories.

Repository

Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives