Recommended Resources
The Civil Rights Movement
The books, articles, films, and websites in this section will enhance the materials included on our website for this era of American history. Many of the books are by the historians whose essays and lectures you have read and listened to here and offer in-depth studies of the topics that have caught your interest. The websites and other resources open new ways to explore American history and take advantage of new interpretations and new technologies to enhance classroom or at-home learning.
Manis, Andrew Michael. A Fire You Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1999.
Young, Andrew. An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
Ogbar, Jeffrey Ogbonna Green. Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
McWhorter, Diane. Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001.
Chafe, William H. Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Ransby, Barbara. Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
Lee, Chana Kai. For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Carmichael, Stokely, with Ekwueme Michael Thelwell. Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003.
Sugrue, Thomas J. Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North. New York: Random House, 2008.
Mills, Kay. This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. New York: Dutton, 1993.
Recommended Resources from Other Sub-Eras
O’Neill, William L. American High: The Years of Confidence, 1945–1960. New York: Free Press, 1986.
Lewis, Mary C. “Origins: How the Holiday Was Born.” American Visions 1, no. 1 (1986): 44–49.
Evans, Sara M. Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979.
Glazer, Tom, comp. Songs of Peace, Freedom, and Protest. New York: D. McKay, 1970.
Shields, Thomas J. “The ‘Tip of the Iceberg’ in a Southern Suburban County: The Fight for a Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday.” Journal of Black Studies 33, no. 4 (2003): 499–519.
Garrow, David J. “The Helms Attack on King.” Southern Exposure 12, no. 2 (1984): 12–15.
Delbanco, Andrew. The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Denisoff, R. Serge, and Richard A. Peterson, eds. The Sounds of Social Change: Studies in Popular Culture. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972.