BHM 2020: Books

Although the heroism of last century's freedom marches will long be credited for ending racial discrimination, civil rights legislation owes much to work done more quietly in the district courtrooms of the South. This book expands our understanding of how the Voting Rights Act came about by focusing on several key cases in Alabama that paved the way for this landmark legislation.

For decades the most racially repressive state in the nation fought bitterly and violently to maintain white supremacy. John Dittmer traces the monumental battle waged by civil rights organizations and by local people, particularly courageous members of the black communities who were willing to put their lives on the line to establish basic human rights for all citizens of the state.

Eyes on the Prize traces the movement from the landmark Brown v. the Board of Education case in 1954 to the march on Selma and the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. This is a companion volume to the first part of the acclaimed PBS series.
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Follows the life of one of the first black organizers of voter registration in Mississippi.

Meridian is a poignant and powerful story of the American South in the 1960s and of one woman who risks her life for the people she loves. Meridian Hill, a courageous young activist, creates peace and understanding by dedicating herself heart and soul to her civil rights work.

This book commemorates and explores the life of one of Mississippi's great civil rights activists, Fannie Lou Hamer. Known for her daring, her brinkmanship and her impassioned speech-making, Hamer rose to prominence in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, an intrepid group which tried to unseat the predominately white Democrats of Mississippi during the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

Hailed as an honest, candid political memoir in a genre more often characterized by slick, self-serving campaign biographies, this book captures Barbara Lee's extraordinary life and political career from her early upbringing in El Paso, Texas, through her years in Oakland, California, with the Black Panther Party, to her service in the U.S. Congress. In a new Afterword to the paper edition, (read more)

Sojourner Truth first gained prominence at an 1851 Akron, Ohio, women's rights conference, saying, "Dat man over dar say dat woman needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches. . . . Nobody eber helps me into carriages, or ober mud-puddles . . . and ar'n't I a woman?"

Sojourner Truth: ex-slave and fiery abolitionist, figure of imposing physique, riveting preacher and spellbinding singer who dazzled listeners with her wit and originality. Straight-talking and unsentimental, Truth became a national symbol for strong black women--indeed, for all strong women.

A riveting account of the origins and legacy of "I Have a Dream"
Forty years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. electrified the nation when he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. King's prophetic utterances started the long overdue process of changing America's idea of itself.

Former black members of Congress: "The Fifteenth Amendment in flesh and blood": The symbolic generation of black Americans in Congress, 1870-1887 and more...

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world.

Limited and persecuted by racial divides in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, three women, including an African-American maid, her sassy and chronically unemployed friend, and a recently graduated white woman, team up for a clandestine project.

Photojournalist Lyon recalls in words and photographs his experiences as the first staff photographer for the Atlanta-based Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the early 1960s demonstrations. His visual work powerfully conveys the spirit of the civil rights movement, and his anecdotes and chronology document the events.

A collection of pictures of the southern phase of the American civil rights movement, from 1958 to 1966. Photographs from the University of Mississippi are combined with photographs of civil rights workers in storefronts and church basements and blacks organizing voter registration drives.

Summary
How did the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee break open the caste system in the American South between 1960 and 1965? In this innovative study, Wesley Hogan explores what SNCC accomplished and, more important, how it fostered significant social change in such a short time. She offers new insights into the internal dynamics of SNCC as well as the workings of the larger civil rights movement.