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Civil Rights

Cover of American Apartheid :the Na
by Stephanie Woodward
9781632460684
[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.

Cover of At the Dark End of the Str
by Danielle L. McGuire
9780307269065
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. Black women’s protests against sexual assault and interracial rape fueled civil rights campaigns throughout the South that began during World War II and went through to the Black Power movement. The Montgomery bus boycott was the baptism, not the birth, of that struggle.
Recommended by MOSES

Cover of Defying Dixie: The Radical
by Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore
9780393062441
2008

The civil rights movement that loomed over the 1950s and 1960s was the tip of an iceberg, the legal and political remnant of a broad, raucous, deeply American movement for social justice that flourished from the 1920s through the 1940s. ... In a dramatic narrative Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore deftly shows how the movement unfolded against national and global developments, gaining focus and finally arriving at a narrow but effective legal strategy for securing desegregation and political rights. Little-known heroes abound in a book that will recast our understanding of the most important social movement in twentieth-century America.

Cover of Driving While Black: Afric
by Gretchen Sullivan Sorin
9781631495694
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. 

Cover of Freedom Facts and Firsts:
by Jessie Carney Smith
9781578591923
2009

Spanning nearly 400 years from the early abolitionists to the present, this guide book profiles more than 400 people, places, and events that have shaped the history of the black struggle for freedom. Coverage includes information on such mainstay figures as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks, but also delves into how lesser known figures contributed to and shaped the history of civil rights.

Cover of From #BlackLivesMatter to
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
9781608465620
[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

Cover of March Book 1
by John Lewis, by Andrew Aydin, by Nate Powell
9781603093002
2013

March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis' lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on thedistance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis'personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civilrights movement.

Cover of March Book 2
by John Lewis, by Andrew Aydin, by Nate Powell
9781603094009
2015

Congressman John Lewis , an American iconand one of the key figures of the civil rights movement, continues hisaward-winning graphic novel trilogy with co-writer Andrew Aydin andartist Nate Powell , inspired by a 1950s comic book that helped preparehis own generation to join the struggle. 

Cover of March Book 3
by John Lewis, by Andrew Aydin, by Nate Powell
9781603094023
2016

Welcome to the stunning conclusion of the award-winning and best-selling MARCH trilogy. Congressman John Lewis , an American icon and one of thekey figures of the civil rights movement, joins co-writer Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell to bring the lessons of history to vivid life fora new generation, urgently relevant for today's world.

Cover of Mighty Justice: My Life in
by Dovey Johnson Roundtree, and Katie McCabe
9781616209551
2019

Trailblazing African American civil rights attorney Dovey Johnson Roundtree, who remains largely unknown to the American public despite her significant and influential achievements, recounts her inspiring life story that speaks movingly and urgently to our racially troubled times. 

Cover of A More Perfect Reunion: Ra
by Calvin Baker
9781568589237
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. The only solution, Baker argues, is integration, which he defines as the full self-determination and participation for all African-Americans, as well as all other oppressed groups, in every facet of national life. Desegregation, diversity, and representation, our usual fall-back solutions, are not enough. Integration is the only remedy to a racist state and to our divisions, and the deepest challenge to the racial order.

Cover of Nobody: Casualties of Amer
by Marc Lamont Hill
9781501124945
2016

A leading intellect in America presents a powerful, thought-provoking analysis of deeper meaning behind the string of deaths of unarmed citizens like Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray--providing important insights on the intersection of race and class in America today.
Recommended by YWCA Madison

Cover of Open Season: Legalized Gen
by Ben Crump
9780062375094
[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... Open Season is more than Crump's incredible mission to preserve justice, it is a call to action for Americans to begin living up to the promise to protect the rights of its citizens equally and without question.

Cover of Pushout: The Criminalizati
by Monique W. Morris
9781620970942
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. 

Cover of Stony the Road: Reconstruc
by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
9780525559535
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? Gates uncovers the roots of structural racism in our own time, while showing how African-Americans after slavery combated it by articulating a vision of a 'New Negro' to force the nation to recognize their humanity and unique contributions to the United States.

Cover of This Nonviolent Stuff'll G
by Charles E Cobb Jr .
9780465033102
[2014]

Civil rights scholar Charles E. Cobb, Jr. reveals the fundamental, but long-overlooked, role that armed self-defense played in the golden era of the civil rights movement.