Civil Liberties

First published in 1961, John Hope Franklin’s revelatory study of the Reconstruction Era is a landmark work of history, exploring the role of former slaves and dispelling longstanding popular myths about corruption and Radical rule. Looking past dubious scholarship that had previously dominated the narrative, Franklin combines astute insight and careful research to provide an accurate, comprehensive portrait of the era.

Based on more than a decade of archival research and interviews with dozens of surviving friends and colleagues of Rustin's, Lost Prophet is a triumph. Rustin emerges as a hero of the black freedom struggle and a singularly important figure in the lost gay history of the mid-20th century. John D'Emilio's compelling narrative rescues a forgotten figure and brings alive a time of great hope and great tragedy in the not-so-distant past.

In This Is Why I Resist activist and political commentator, Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu digs down into the deep roots of racism and anti-blackness in the UK and the US. Using real life examples from the modern day, Dr Shola shows us the different forms racism takes in our day-to-day lives and asks us to raise our voice to end the oppression. She delves into subjects not often explored such as racial gatekeepers, white ingratitude, performative allyship (those black squares on Instagram), current identity politics and abuse of the Black trans community.

Few have ever valued literacy as much as the enslaved Black people of the American South. For them, it was more than a means to a better life; it was a gateway to freedom and, in some instances, a tool for inspiring revolt. And few governments tried harder to suppress literacy than did those in the South. Everyone understood that knowledge was power: power to keep a person enslaved in mind and body, power to resist oppression. In the decades before the Civil War, Southern governments drove Black literacy underground, but it was too precious to be entirely stamped out.

The hour is critical. The American republic is suffering its gravest crisis since the Civil War. Conflicts, hostility, and incivility now threaten to tear the country apart. Competing visions have led to a dangerous moment of cultural self-destruction. This is no longer politics as usual, but an era of political warfare where our enemies are not foreign adversaries, but our fellow citizens. Yet the roots of the crisis are deeper than many realize. Os Guinness argues that we face a fundamental crisis of freedom, as America's genius for freedom has become her Achilles' heel.

Phillips charts the way forward for progressives and people of color after four years of Trump, arguing that Democrats must recognize the nature of the fight we're in, which is a contest between democracy and white supremacy left unresolved after the Civil War. We will not overcome, Phillips writes, until we govern as though we are under attack—until we finally recognize that the time has come to finish the conquest of the Confederacy and all that it represents.

"An important, strenuously argued contribution to the case against our nation's scandalous narcotics policies and laws. Particularly valuable are the the encyclopaedic historical and anthropological perspectives which the author brings to bear on our cultural crisis." (Peter Dale Scott, English Department, University of California, Berkeley, author of Cocaine Politics, Deep Politics, Crime & Cover-Up, Coming to Jakarta)

In The Tougaloo Nine, M. J. O'Brien delves into Tougaloo College's culture of resistance, Mississippi's determination to preserve segregation, and the early stirrings of the student movement in Jackson. Through numerous interviews and years of detailed research, O'Brien tells the stories of these courageous African American students.

From the award-winning author of Birth, a journey into the underground activist networks that have been working to protect women’s autonomy over their bodies amidst legal, political, religious, and cultural oppression over the past sixty years. In this definitive, eye-opening history...

In Rebirth of a Nation, Goza exposes lesser-known aspects of racism in American history and how Black people have consistently been depicted as responsible for their own oppression to justify slavery, Jim Crow, mass incarceration and gross inequality. Goza’s iconoclastic and incisive account exposes how revered figures like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln embedded white supremacy deep into our nation’s consciousness—and how Ronald Reagan manipulated this ideology so that society cheered as he advanced a set of policies that wounded our nation and intensified Black America’s suffering.

History, race, and politics converged in the 1960s in ways that indelibly changed America. In Justice Rising, a landmark reconsideration of Robert Kennedy’s life and legacy, Patricia Sullivan draws on government files, personal papers, and oral interviews to reveal how he grasped the moment to emerge as a transformational leader.

Black Hands, White House documents and appraises the role enslaved women and men played in building the US, both its physical and its fiscal infrastructure. The book highlights the material commodities produced by enslaved communities during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. These commodities enriched European and US economies; contributed to the material and monetary wealth of the nation's founding fathers, other early European immigrants, and their descendants; and bolstered the wealth of present-day companies founded during the American slave era.

Why is racism still with us, and what can the Civil Rights Movement tell us about today? David Billings, a self-described “son of the South,” tackles these questions in his well-researched, deeply personal and eminent new audio book, Deep Denial: The Persistence of White Supremacy in United States History and Life.

Sur un ton énergique, ironique et engagé, l'une des plus grandes voix féminines de la Révolution française, Olympe de Gouges, rédige le premier document à évoquer l'égalité juridique et légale des femmes avec celle des hommes. “Femme, réveille-toi; le tocsin de la raison se fait entendre dans tout l'univers ; reconnais tes droits. Le puissant empire de la nature n'est plus environné de préjugés, de fanatisme, de superstition et de mensonges. Le flambeau de la vérité a dissipé tous les nuages de la sottise et de l'usurpation."

We’ve all heard this phrase countless times, echoing in courtroom dramas and blockbuster films. It's a solemn promise, a cornerstone of justice. Yet, for those who have faced the harsh realities of divorce, financial disputes, child custody battles, and other court proceedings, the notion of truth in the legal system often seems like a cruel joke. The author grew up believing that the law was fair, that justice was a clear line between right and wrong, upheld by judges, courts, and the police. His first family court hearing shattered that illusion.

Decades before the impeachment of an American president for a similar offense, Angelo Herndon was charged under Georgia law with "attempting to incite insurrection"—a crime punishable by death. In 1932, the eighteen-year-old Black Communist Party organizer was arrested and had his room illegally searched and his radical literature seized. Charged under an old slave insurrection statute, Herndon was convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to eighteen to twenty years on a chain gang.

New evidence in Dynamite Nashville uncovers the origin of an organized group of racist terrorists committing nationwide acts of violence against integration efforts in the late 1950's and early 1960s. Award winning historian Betsy Phillips not only paints a detailed picture of the social dynamic of the times, but details how a violent fringe of racists came to national prominence. In Dynamite Nashville, Phillips unmasks the KKK, reveals a racist terrorist network, names its principle leader, and shines a much needed historical spotlight on unsung civil rights hero Z. Alexander Looby.

“Smart, patriotic, and readable, this book is what our cynical culture needs.” — Pete Hegseth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Battle for the American Mind America is full of inspiring heroes. Greatness is not a chance—it is a choice. George Washington didn’t simply wake up as...

This concise but comprehensive book lays out specific answers to myriad topical questions about free speech law, and also general explanations of how and why the law distinguishes between protected and punishable speech. The book focuses on modern First Amendment law, explaining the historic factors that propelled its evolution in a more speech-protective direction—in particular, the Civil Rights Movement. It highlights the many cases, involving multiple issues, in which robust speech-protective principles aided advocates of racial justice and other human rights causes.

Imelda Marcos - famous for her 1,060 pairs of shoes was also one of the most powerful and controversial figures in world history. She was extraordinarily beautiful, charismatic, determined and savage. Imelda: Steel Butterfly of the Philippines, a uniquely unauthorized biography by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Katherine Ellison, describes the Philippine first lady's rise from near-poverty to unimaginable riches, her surprisingly tenacious attempt to take over as dictator, and her fatal grudge match with her chief political rival, Benigno Ninoy Aquino.