Civil Rights Biography

The first definitive account of Boko Haram’s abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls, their years in captivity, and why this story still matters - by celebrated international journalist Isha Sesay. The kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls by Boko Haram in 2014 made global headlines. From poor Nigerian...

Inspired by her transgender son, activist Jodie Patterson explores identity, gender, race, and authenticity to tell the real-life story of a family’s history and transformation. “A courageous and poetic testimony on family and the self, and the learning and unlearning we must do for those we...

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...

Makes a powerful argument for adopting a model of restorative justice as part of the Innocence Movement so exonerees, crime victims, and their communities can come together to heal. In Rectify, a former Innocence Project director and journalist Lara Bazelon puts a face to the growing number of...

The New York Times bestseller Out of the greatest dynasty in American professional sports history, a Boston Celtics team led by Bill Russell and Bob Cousy, comes an intimate story of race, mortality, and regret About to turn ninety, Bob Cousy, the Hall of Fame Boston Celtics captain who led the...

More than 50 years ago, an assassin's bullet robbed us of one of the most eloquent voices for 20th-century human rights and justice. Drawing on a new generation of scholarship about the civil rights era, To the Promised Land goes beyond the iconic view of King as an advocate of racial harmony to explore his profound commitment to the poor and working class, and his call for "nonviolent resistance" to all forms of oppression, including economic injustice.

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...

Written by a wrongfully convicted man who spent 16 years in solitary confinement and 12 years on death row, a powerful memoir about fighting for—and winning—exoneration. In the summer of 1992, a grandmother, a teenage girl, and four children under the age of ten were beaten and stabbed to...

An intimate look at the people ensnared by the US detention and deportation system, the largest in the world On a bright Phoenix morning, Elena Santiago opened her door to find her house surrounded by a platoon of federal immigration agents. Her children screamed as the officers handcuffed...

A gripping tale of racial cleansing in Forsyth County, Georgia, and a harrowing testament to the deep roots of racial violence in America. Forsyth County, Georgia, at the turn of the twentieth century was home to a large African American community that included ministers and teachers, farmers...

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.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A hauntingly beautiful account of a family fractured by war . . . filled with vivid and heartbreaking details.”—The New York Times Book Review NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE “Full of wonderful treasures offered by a unique and spirited father . . . written...

From bestselling author and beloved New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin, a deeply resonant, career-spanning collection of articles on race and racism, from the 1960s to the present In the early sixties, Calvin Trillin got his start as a journalist covering the Civil Rights Movement in the South...

Marshall Frady, the reporter who became the unofficial chronicler of the civil rights movement, here re-creates the life and turbulent times of its inspirational leader. Deftly interweaving the story of King’s quest with a history of the African American struggle for equality, Frady offers...

“You won’t leave this hypnotic book without feeling that James Brown is still out there, howling.”—The Boston Globe From the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction, Deacon King Kong, and Five-Carat Soul Kill...

In 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American seamstress, had no idea she was changing history when, fed up and tired, she refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a bus in segregated Alabama. Today, she is immortalized for the defiance that sent her to jail and triggered a bus boycott...

The fascinating and very moving story of the lovers, lawyers, judges and activists behind the groundbreaking Supreme Court case that led to one of the most important, national civil rights victories in decades—the legalization of same-sex marriage. In June 2015, the Supreme Court made same-sex...

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times; The New York Times Book Review; NPR; Publishers Weekly “This absorbing and important book recounts the titanic struggle over the implications of the Civil War amid the impeachment of a defiant and temperamentally erratic...

Equal parts coming-of-age tale, civil rights history, and reflection on the power of education, Overnight Code is the inspiring story of a Raye Montague, a groundbreaking African American female engineer who created the first computer-designed ship for the US Navy.

A comprehensive biographical and critical reading of the works of American poet and memoirist Maya Angelou (1928-2014). Linda Wagner-Martin covers all six of Angelou's autobiographies, as well as her essay and poetry collections, while also exploring Angelou's life as an African American in the United States, her career as stage and film performer, her thoughtful participation in the Civil Rights actions of the 1960s, and her travels abroad in Egypt, Africa, and Europe.