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Civil Rights

Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People

Cover of Open Season: Legalized Gen
by Ben Crump
[2019]

[Ben Crump] shows that there is a persistent, prevailing, and destructive mindset regarding colored people that is rooted in our history as a slave-owning nation. This biased attitude has given rise to mass incarceration, voter disenfranchisement, unequal educational opportunities, disparate health care practices, job and housing discrimination, police brutality, and an unequal justice system...

A More Perfect Reunion: Race, Integration, and the Future of America

Cover of A More Perfect Reunion: Ra
by Calvin Baker
2020

For four centuries, Americans have found ways to live in a system of racial tyranny and apartheid. We tell ourselves that we know better, but with each generation, too many of us have been satisfied with doing just a little, deciding that the rest is a question for the future. But as acclaimed, award-winning writer Calvin Baker argues in this bracing, necessary book, we are now in that future: racism has torn the country apart and threatens our democracy.

From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

Cover of From #BlackLivesMatter to
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
[2016]

Activist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor surveys the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and persistence of structural inequality such as mass incarceration and Black unemployment. In this context, she argues that this new struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader push for Black liberation.
Recommended by YWCA Madison

American Apartheid :the Native American Struggle for Self-determination and Inclusion

Cover of American Apartheid :the Na
by Stephanie Woodward
[2018]

Offers an account of the issues and threats that Native Americans face today, as well as their heroic battles to overcome them. Woodard details the ways in which the government curtails Native voting rights, which, in turn, keeps tribal members from participating in policy-making surrounding education, employment, rural transportation, infrastructure projects, and other critical issues affecting their communities.

At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance: A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power

Cover of At the Dark End of the Str
by Danielle L. McGuire
2010

The author gives us the never-before-told history of how the civil rights movement began; how it was in part started in protest against the ritualistic rape of black women by white men who used economic intimidation, sexual violence, and terror to derail the freedom movement; and how those forces persisted unpunished throughout the Jim Crow era when white men assaulted black women to enforce rules of racial and economic hierarchy.

Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow

Cover of Stony the Road: Reconstruc
by Henry Louis Gates
Jr.
2019

The abolition of slavery after the Civil War is a familiar story, as is the civil rights revolution that transformed the nation after World War II. But the century in between remains a mystery: if emancipation sparked 'a new birth of freedom' in Lincoln's America, why was it necessary to march in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s America?

Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights

Cover of Driving While Black: Afric
by Gretchen Sullivan Sorin
2020

Acclaimed historian Gretchen Sorin reveals how the car--the ultimate symbol of independence and possibility--has always held particular 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. She recounts the creation of a parallel, unseen world of black motorists, who relied on travel guides, black only businesses, and informal communications networks to keep them safe. 

Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

Cover of Pushout: The Criminalizati
by Monique W. Morris
2015

For four years Monique W. Morris, author of Black Stats , chronicled the experiences of black girls across the country whose intricate lives are misunderstood, highly judged--by teachers, administrators, and the justice system--and degraded by the very institutions charged with helping them flourish. Morris shows how, despite obstacles, stigmas, stereotypes, and despair, black girls still find ways to breathe remarkable dignity into their lives in classrooms, juvenile facilities, and beyond.