This collection is the result of a project sponsored by the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) and funded by the Louisiana Council for the Humanities and the Acadiana Committee in Human Relations. The project directors were Drs. Patricia Rickels and Matthew Schott with assistance from Barry Ancelet, Elemore Morgan, Jr., and Doris White. The collection contains taped interviews with several participants in Louisiana's civil rights movement. The final product of the project, a slide-tape presentation, "No Gains Without Pains: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement in Louisiana," is also included. When donating this collection to USL in 1984, the project directors chose to name the collection in honor of J. Carlton James, a long-time Lafayette educator and civil rights leader. He is one of the people interviewed.

The collection was donated to USL by the Project Directors in 1984. Tapes are recorded on one side only.