Civil Rights History

In this, Frederick Douglass’s second memoir, the abolitionist leader reflects further on the inhuman oppression he had personally endured and explores the larger impact of such injustice on society as a whole. At the time of writing, Douglass had emerged from chattel slavery in Maryland to a qualified freedom in the North and become a renowned speaker on the power of literacy and self-reliance. This story goes deeper than what Douglass was able to address in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass....

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD BARI WEISS NAMED TO THE 2025 TIME100 NEXT LIST The prescient founder of The Free Press and editor-in-chief of CBS News delivers an urgent wake-up call to all Americans exposing the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in this country—and explains what we...

"If it is possible to understand the American paradox, the marriage of slavery and freedom, Virginia is surely the place to begin," writes Edmund S. Morgan in American Slavery, American Freedom, a study of the tragic contradiction at the core of America. Morgan finds the key to this central paradox in the people and politics of the state that was both the birthplace of the revolution and the largest slaveholding state in the country.

Relive the moments when African Americans fought for equal rights, and made history. Even though slavery had ended in the 1860s, African Americans were still suffering under the weight of segregation a hundred years later. They couldn't go to the same schools, eat at the same restaurants, or...

Pulitzer Prize–winning former Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson tells our nation’s torturous racial history through his own family’s story, starting with his great-grandfather’s freedom from slavery and threading his way to his own narrative and reaching today’s Black Lives...

Book Three of Robert A. Caro’s monumental work, The Years of Lyndon Johnson—the most admired and riveting political biography of our era—which began with the best-selling and prizewinning The Path to Power and Means of Ascent. Master of the Senate carries Lyndon Johnson’s story through...

Longtime NBC News reporter Char Adams writes a deeply compelling and rigorously reported history of Black political movements told through the lens of Black-owned bookstores, which have been centers for organizing from abolition to the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter. In Black-Owned...

Ida B. Wells is an American icon of truth telling. Born to slaves, she was a pioneer of investigative journalism, a crusader against lynching, and a tireless advocate for suffrage, both for women and for African Americans. She cofounded the NAACP, started the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago, and was a leader in the early civil rights movement. This engaging memoir relates Wells’ private life as a mother as well as her public activities as a teacher, lecturer, and journalist in her fight for equality and justice.

2019 Best-Of Lists: 10 Best Science Books of the Year (Smithsonian Magazine) · Best Science Books of the Year (NPR's Science Friday) · Best Science and Technology Books from 2019” (Library Journal) An astute and timely examination of the re-emergence of scientific research into racial...

A comprehensive and engaging oral history of the decade that defined the feminist movement, including interviews with living icons and unsung heroes—from former Newsweek reporter and author of the “powerful and moving” (The New York Times) Witness to the Revolution. For lovers of both...

The history of black Freemasonry from Boston and Philadelphia in the late 1700s through the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement Examines the letters of Prince Hall, legendary founder of the first black lodge Reveals how many of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century...

A New York Times 2016 Notable Book The definitive history of the successful battle to halt the AIDS epidemic—from the creator of, and inspired by, the seminal documentary How to Survive a Plague. A riveting, powerful telling of the story of the grassroots movement of activists, many of them in...

From before the dawn of the 20th century until the arrival of the New Deal, one of the most protracted and deadly labor struggles in American history was waged in West Virginia. On one side were powerful corporations whose millions bought armed guards and political influence. On the other side were 50,000 mine workers, the nation's largest labor union, and the legendary "miners' angel", Mother Jones.

How did a six-year-old Black girl become the courageous face of the 1960 civil rights movement? Learn all about the inspiring true story of the civil rights activist Ruby Bridges. Even though the US Supreme Court ruled segregated schools illegal in 1954, it wasn’t until 1960 that school...

Drawing on information sequestered until recently in FBI records, Theoharis shows how these secret activities in the World War II and Cold War eras expanded FBI surveillance powers and, in the process, eroded civil liberties without substantially advancing legitimate security interests.

Nonie Darwish lived for thirty years in a majority Muslim nation. Everything about her life?family, sexuality, hygiene, business, banking, contracts, economics, politics, social issues, everything?was dictated by the Islamic law code known as Sharia. But Sharia isn't staying in majority Muslim...

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY An "important, deeply affecting—and regrettably relevant" (New York Times) chronicle of a sinister idea of freedom: white Americans’ freedom to oppress others and their fight against the government that got in their way. American freedom is typically...

A FINALIST FOR THE HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE: A stunning work of investigative reporting by a Canadian journalist who has risked her own life to bring us a deeply disturbing history of the Rwandan genocide that takes the true measure of Rwandan head of state Paul Kagame. Through...

Discover the untold story of Charles R. Saunders, the little known figure who wrote groundbreaking fantasy worlds and redefined an entire genre. Blending biography with a tribute to Saunders’ forgotten literary legacy, To Leave a Warrior Behind uncovers the life of an enigmatic recluse, and...

An urgent and definitive examination of how the legal system prevents accountability for police misconduct, from one of the country's leading scholars on policing In recent years, the high-profile murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others have brought much-needed attention to...