Overview of a research process (Gardner), followed by student findings While there are many histories of the civil rights movement (including books and online sources) that I may have consulted , I deliberately limited my search to three sources: Facts on File, The New York Times Index, and The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, in order to evaluate how magazine and newspaper coverage of the time reported events that we now consider historically significant . One of the first things I discovered was that the “Civil Rights Movement”? it was not an entry in the Times Index: this suggests that the various attempts to boycott local businesses and bus services, or to integrate lunch counters, were still so separate and so small that they garnered little national attention. However, the most productive heading for 1955 (as it was for 1943) was the term ?Negroes? if I looked in the Times Index or Readers? Guide. Under this Times Index entry, I found articles reporting that the Interstate Commerce Commission, following the 1954 Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education, had banned segregation on interstate buses and rail lines. Later in the year, the same Supreme Court banned the segregation of public parks, beaches, and golf courses, a ruling bitterly protested by a number of Southern white leaders as soon as it was announced. as a topic title in Readers? Drive, I found several articles on the economic prospects of blacks, with titles ranging from ?The Economic Progress of Negroes? (America 01/15/55) at ?Wanted: Qualified Negroes? (Time 07/11/55). Under the Psychology subheading I found an article titled "When schools are mixed, will standards fall?" (US News and World Report 04/22/55), that in the middle of the paper millions of black readers (people who actually cared about the topic) read what he had to say. Baldwin called on blacks to stand up for what they believe in. By publishing his work in places that would receive attention from those who agreed with him, he in a sense paved the way for the ?boycott? and a protest against the way blacks were treated. He fueled the civil rights movement by calling on blacks to demand equal rights and fight against the injustices blacks experience every day at the hands of whites. Even as Rosa Parks drew attention to the unfair treatment blacks received, Baldwin told stories about the unfair treatment he and his family received. Although not immediately apparent, Baldwin used a specific strategy to influence society with his writings, publishing them where they would be seen and read by people interested in the issue..