American Civil Rights

When Sharon Langley was born in the early 1960s, many amusement parks were segregated; African-American families were not allowed entry. This interesting tale reveals how in the summer of 1963, due to demonstrations and public protests, Maryland's Gwynn Oak Amusement Park became desegregated and opened to all for the first time. Co-author Sharon Langley was the first African-American child to ride the carousel. This was on the same day of Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Langley’s ride to remember demonstrated the possibilities of King’s dream.

Before the Civil War, colonization schemes and black laws threatened to deport former slaves born in the United States. Birthright Citizens recovers the story of how African American activists remade national belonging through battles in legislatures, conventions, and courthouses.

Good Trouble is the helpful antidote to all the pessimism and name-calling that is permeating today’s political and social dialogues. Revisiting episodes from the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s, it highlights the essential lessons that modern-day activists and the civically minded can extract and embrace in order to move forward and create change. 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.

During the civil rights movement, the state of Mississippi created an elaborate spy network. Its mission was to preserve segregation by any means necessary—including voter interference, sponsorship of white supremacy groups, and even murder.

From acclaimed author Patricia Hruby Powell comes the story of a landmark civil rights case, told in spare and gorgeous verse. In 1955, in Caroline County, Virginia, amidst segregation and prejudice, injustice and cruelty, two teenagers fell in love. Their life together broke the law, but their determination would change it. Richard and Mildred Loving were at the heart of a Supreme Court case that legalized marriage between races, and a story of the devoted couple who faced discrimination, fought it, and won.

In 1910, Crystal Eastman was one of the most conspicuous progressive reformers in America. By the 1920s, her ardent suffragism, insistent anti-militarism, gregarious internationalism, and uncompromising feminism branded her "the most dangerous woman in America" and led to her exile in England. Yet a century later, her legacy in shaping several defining movements of the modern era-labor, feminism, free speech, peace - is unquestioned.

The Water Dancer meets The Prophets in this spare, gripping, and beautifully rendered novel exploring love and friendship among a group of enslaved Black strivers in the mid-19th century. They call themselves the Stolen. Their owners call them captives. They are taught their captors’ tongues...

Examines how student protest against structural inequalities on campus pushes academic institutions to reckon with their legacy built on slavery and stolen Indigenous lands Using campus social justice movements as an entry point, Leigh Patel shows how the struggles in higher education often...

“A deeply-researched and well-written account of” (Peter Bergen, author of United States of Jihad) M19—the first and only domestic terrorist group founded and led by women—as they waged a violent war against racism, sexism, and imperialism in Ronald Reagan’s America. 1981: Ronald...

In stark and compelling prose, Thomas W. Jones tells his story as a campus revolutionary who led an armed revolt at Cornell University in 1969 and then altered his course over the next 50 years to become a powerful leader in the financial industry including high-level positions at John Hancock, TIAA-CREF, and Citigroup as Wall Street plunged into its darkest hour.

John David Dingell, the longest serving United States’ Congressman in history, and one of the House's most powerful chairmen, offers a unique, unforgettable, and refreshingly candid behind-the-scenes account of government and politics over the past eighty years. Democrat John David Dingell...

From the heroic lawyer who spoke out against Clarence Thomas in the historic confirmation hearings twenty years ago At the historic Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, Anita Hill spoke out courageously about workplace sexual harassment. Now she turns to the topic of home. As our country...

Following in the footsteps of Robeson, Ali, Robinson and others, today’s Black athletes re-engage with social issues and the meaning of American patriotism Named a best book of 2018 by Library Journal It used to be that politics and sports were as separate from one another as church and state...

Magnolia Grove: The Story of Rear Admiral Richmond Pearson Hobson concerns a charismatic American whose colorful life at the beginning of the 20th century reflected the rapidly changing politics and romance of his time.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY San Francisco Chronicle The Plain Dealer The inspiring true story of a group of young men whose lives were changed by a visionary mentor On April 4, 1968, the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., shocked the nation. Later that month, the Reverend...

The summer of 1898 is filled with ups and downs for 11-year-old Moses. He's growing apart from his best friend, his superstitious Boo-Nanny butts heads constantly with his pragmatic, educated father, and his mother is reeling from the discovery of a family secret. Yet there are good times, too...

Ninety years of American history as lived by the nation's preeminent African American historian and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. John Hope Franklin lived through America's most defining twentieth-century transformation, the dismantling of legally-protected racial segregation. A...

“American history comes to vivid, engaging life in this tale of two interconnected families (one white, one black) that spans from the 1950s to Barack Obama’s first year as president. . . . The complex, beautifully drawn characters are unique and indelible.”—Entertainment Weekly “An...

A bold, thought-provoking pathway to the national solidarity that could, finally, address the ills of racism in America “Racism is an existential threat to America,” Theodore R. Johnson declares at the start of his profound and exhilarating book. It is a refutation of the American Promise...

Published in commemoration of the centennial of President John F. Kennedy’s birth, here is the definitive compendium of JFK’s most important and brilliant speeches, accompanied by commentary and reflections by leading American and international figures—including Senator Elizabeth Warren...