Gatorman, I'm doing some stuff right now on Vietnam and LBJ's Great Society that started with two interviews I conducted with Bloods (Black Vietnam combat vets) . It has since blossomed to me setting up their stories with a run down of Civili Rights from 1960-on. And wow was that a task - been a year now.
I don't fool with libraries. You can find so many books online if you need them. Rather, I get a lot of my stuff off eBay - sounds weird, but out of print books, old editions of magazines, protest flyers, artifacts, congressional hearing booklets, political mail with position papers to constituents from Senators/Reps, Newspapers, personal letters, etc.
I found a great letter written to Mayor Daley and his answer back to the person about the riots at the 1968 DNC in Chicago. I purchased the room key to McCarthy's communications center in the Conrad Hilton during the 68 DNC where protesters with cracked skulls were brought to give first aid to. A kid who was a teenager at the time held on to it - he was working for the campaign, said it changed his life. I got a great story from him that would have been lost otherwise. Amazing what you can find.
The stuff is high-grade primary source history preserved in the minute of the era it was written, reported, recorded or photographed. Another example, I just picked up a 3-inch MLK button for the April 27, 1968 Fifth Avenue Peace Committee protest in Central Park. Dr. King was supposed to speak at it, but was assassinated 3-weeks earlier, so they made the pins as a commemoration (His wife spoke instead) and the pins were marked wth the details on the rim. I have some leaflets from that march I got years ago. You piece it together with internet searches - just have to check sources on internet and double/triple check. But that pin tells a tidy little story of MLK joining the Anti-war movement a year earlier, and that's what likely got him killed (Bobby Kennedy too).
I haven't been in a Punta Gorda library since the 80s. They used to be decent though.
