Civil Rights History

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...

Winner of the 2016 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing: The true story of the game that never should have happened -- and of a nation on the brink of monumental change. In the fall of 1943, at the little-known North Carolina College for Negroes, Coach John McLendon was on the verge of...

An essential, galvanizing narrative about making a difference here and abroad—a road map to becoming the most effective global citizens we can be. In their number one New York Times best seller Half the Sky, husband-and-wife team Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn brought to light struggles...

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...

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 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...

Named "most anticipated" book of February by Marie Claire, Essence, and A.V. Club "…extraordinary and representative."—NPR "Drayton explores the ramifications of racism that span generations, global white supremacy, and the pitfalls of American culture."—Shondaland After following...

Includes an audiobook-exclusive interview with the project’s editors, Suzette Llewellyn and Suzanne Packer. A timely book and a conversation starter on race in Britain.’ Rachel Edwards, Author of Darling and Lucky ‘A timely book in a year that has made clear that Britain still has a...

Americans are deeply divided over the Second Amendment. Some passionately assert that the Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns. Others, that it does no more than protect the right of states to maintain militias. Now, in the first and only comprehensive history of this bitter controversy, Saul Cornell proves conclusively that both sides are wrong. Cornell, a leading constitutional historian, shows that the Founders understood the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but as a civic right.

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.

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...

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was not trying to start a movement. She was simply tired of the social injustice. Yet, her simple act of courage started a chain of events that forever shaped the landscape of American race...

In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. This seemingly small act triggered civil rights protests across America and earned Rosa Parks the title "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement...

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE A shocking, groundbreaking oral history of the infamous Rikers jail complex and an unflinching portrait of injustice and resilience told by the people whose lives have been forever altered by it “This mesmerizing and gut-wrenching book shows the brutal...

"Narrator Torian Brackett brings vocal gravitas to this biography of Jack Robinson, which dwells as much on the athlete's youth and post-baseball civil rights activism as it does on his groundbreaking career with the Brooklyn Dodgers. It's a powerful, stirringly delivered account..." - AudioFile...

A New York Times Editors' Choice Best Book of the Year: Time, NPR, Bookpage, L.A. Times What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book, Pulitzer Prize­­–finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to U.S. citizen, using...

2020 Chautauqua Prize Finalist 2020 NAACP Image Award Nominee - Outstanding Literary Work (Nonfiction) Best-of Lists: Best Nonfiction Books of 2019 (Kirkus Reviews) · 25 Can't-Miss Books of 2019 (The Undefeated) Explores the terror, grace, and beauty of coming of age as a Black person in...

Ballot box voting is often considered the essence of political freedom. But it has two major shortcomings: individual voters have little chance of making a difference, and they also face strong incentives to remain ignorant about the issues at stake. "Voting with your feet", however, avoids both of these pitfalls and offers a wider range of choices. In Free to Move, Ilya Somin explains how broadening opportunities for foot voting can greatly enhance political liberty for millions of people around the world.