The 1960s are known as one of the most tumultuous decades in world history, which included Black American’s struggle for social justice and equal rights in the United States.
Malcolm X. : A Life of Reinvention
“An authoritative biography of Malcolm X draws on new research to trace his life from his troubled youth through his involvement in the Nation of Islam, his activism in the world of Black Nationalism, and his assassination.”- Provided by the Publisher
Available Formats: Book, eBook
The Fire Next Time
“A stirring, intimate reflection on the nature of race and American nationhood that has inspired generations of writers and thinkers, first published in 1963, the same year as the March on Washington.”- Provided by the Publisher
Available Formats: Book, eBook, eAudiobook
Deep Delta Justice: A Black Teen, His Lawyer, and Their Groundbreaking Battle for Civil Rights in the South
“In 1966 in a small town in Louisiana, a 19-year-old black man named Gary Duncan pulled his car off the road to stop a fight. Duncan was arrested a few minutes later for the crime of putting his hand on the arm of a white child. Rather than accepting his fate, Duncan found Richard Sobol, a brilliant, 29-year-old lawyer from New York who was the only white attorney at “the most radical law firm” in New Orleans. Against them stood one of the most powerful white supremacists in the South, a man called simply “The Judge.” In this powerful work of character-driven history, journalist Matthew Van Meter vividly brings alive how a seemingly minor incident brought massive, systemic change to the criminal justice system. Using first-person interviews, in-depth research and a deep knowledge of the law, Van Meter shows how Gary Duncan’s insistence on seeking justice empowered generations of defendants-disproportionately poor and black-to demand fair trials. Duncan v. Louisiana changed American law, but first it changed the lives of those who litigated it”- Provided by publisher.
Available Format: Book
Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights
“How the automobile fundamentally changed African American life-the true history beyond the Best Picture-winning movie. The ultimate symbol of independence and possibility, the automobile has shaped this country from the moment the first Model T rolled off Henry Ford’s assembly line. Yet cars have always held distinct importance for African Americans, allowing black families to evade the many dangers presented by an entrenched racist society and to enjoy, in some measure, the freedom of the open road. Gretchen Sorin recovers a forgotten history of black motorists, and recounts their creation of a parallel, unseen world of travel guides, black only hotels, and informal communications networks that kept black drivers safe. At the heart of this story is Victor and Alma Green’s famous Green Book, begun in 1936, which made possible that most basic American right, the family vacation, and encouraged a new method of resisting oppression. Enlivened by Sorin’s personal history, Driving While Black opens an entirely new view onto the African American experience, and shows why travel was so central to the Civil Rights movement”- Provided by publisher.
Available Formats: Book, eBook
Free All Along: The Robert Penn Warren Civil Rights Interviews
“A collection of previously unpublished interviews with key figures of the black freedom struggle by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Penn Warren”- Provided by publisher.
Available Formats: Book
Bending Towards Justice: The Birmingham Church Bombing that Changed the Course of Civil Rights
“The story of the decades-long fight to bring justice to the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, culminating in Senator Doug Jones’ prosecution of the last living bombers. On September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed. The blast killed four young girls and injured twenty-two others. The FBI suspected four particularly radical Ku Klux Klan members. Yet due to reluctant witnesses, a lack of physical evidence, and pervasive racial prejudice the case was closed without any indictments. But as Martin Luther King, Jr. famously expressed it, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ Years later, Alabama Attorney General William Baxley reopened the case, ultimately convicting one of the bombers in 1977. Another suspect passed away in 1994, and then-US Attorney Doug Jones tried and convicted the final two in 2001 and 2002. This represented the correction of an outrageous miscarriage of justice nearly forty years in the making. Jones went on to win election as Alabama’s first Democratic Senator since 1992 in a dramatic race against Republican challenger Roy Moore. [This book] is a compulsively readable account of a key moment in our long national struggle for equality and justice, related by an author who played a major role in these events.”-Dust jacket.
Available Format: Book
Good Trouble: Lessons from the Civil Rights Playbook
“In words and vivid pen-and-watercolor illustrations, journalist Christopher Noxon dives into the real stories behind the front lines of the Montgomery bus boycott and the Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins and notable figures such as Rosa Parks and Bayard Rustin, all while exploring the parallels between the civil rights movement era and the present moment.” – Provided by Publisher.
Available Formats: Book, eBook, eAudiobook
The Struggle is Eternal: Gloria Richardson and the Black Liberation
“Many prominent and well-known figures greatly impacted the civil rights movement, but one of the most influential and unsung leaders of that period was Gloria Richardson. As the leader of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee (CNAC), a multifaceted liberation campaign formed to target segregation and racial inequality in Cambridge, Maryland, Richardson advocated for economic justice and tactics beyond nonviolent demonstrations. Her philosophies and strategies–including her belief that black people had a right to self-defense–were adopted, often without credit, by a number of civil rights and black power leaders and activists. The Struggle Is Eternal: Gloria Richardson and Black Liberation explores the largely forgotten but deeply significant life of this central figure and her determination to improve the lives of black people. Using a wide range of source materials, including interviews with Richardson and her personal papers, as well as interviews with dozens of her friends, relatives, and civil rights colleagues, Joseph R. Fitzgerald presents an all-encompassing narrative. From Richardson’s childhood, when her parents taught her the importance of racial pride, through the next eight decades, Fitzgerald relates a detailed and compelling story of her life. He reveals how Richardson’s human rights activism extended far beyond Cambridge and how her leadership style and vision for liberation were embraced by the younger activists of the black power movement, who would carry the struggle on throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s”- Provided by Publisher.
Available Format: Book
We Shall Overcome: Press Photographs of Nashville during the Civil Rights Era
“Fifty years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s death–and at a time when race relations and social justice are again at the forefront of our country’s consciousness–this book expands on a Frist Center for the Visual Arts exhibition to present a selection of approximately one hundred photographs that document an important period in Nashville’s struggle for racial equality. The images were taken between 1957, the year that desegregation in public schools began, and 1968, when the National Guard was called in to surround the state capitol in the wake of the civil rights leader’s assassination in Memphis. Photographs from the archives of both daily newspapers will be included: the Tennessean, which was the more liberal publication, and the Nashville Banner, a conservative paper whose leadership seemed less interested in covering events related to racial issues. Some of the photographs in the exhibition were selected to be published in the papers, but many were not, the disclosure of which reveals insight into the editorial process.”- Provided by Publisher.
Available Format: Book
Binge Box: Black History
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