King: A Biography, Third Edition
David Levering Lewis
Acclaimed by leading historians and critics when it appeared shortly after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., this foundational biography wends through the corridors in which King held court, posing the right questions and providing a keen measure of the man whose career and mission enthrall scholars and general readers to this day. Updated with a new preface and more than a dozen photographs of King and his contemporaries, this edition presents the unforgettable story of King’s life and death for a new generation.
Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC
Edited by Faith S. Holsaert, Martha Prescod Norman Noonan, Judy Richardson, Betty Garman Robinson, Jean Smith Young, and Dorothy M. Zellner
In Hands on the Freedom Plow, fifty-two women–northern and southern, young and old, urban and rural, black, white, and Latina–share their courageous personal stories of working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement.
The testimonies gathered here present a sweeping personal history of SNCC: early sit-ins, voter registration campaigns, and Freedom Rides; the 1963 March on Washington, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the movements in Alabama and Maryland; and Black Power and antiwar activism.
When the Good Life Goes Bad: The US and Its Seven Deadly Sins
Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas
Foreword by Michael Eric Dyson
The Seven Deadly Sins have become the seven markers of success in America. Lust, pride, greed, sloth, envy, gluttony, wrath—these once-condemned principles now guide people’s pursuit of the good life.
Evocative and ambitious, When the Good Life Goes Bad takes readers on a wide-ranging journey through US life and culture to explain what corrupted the American dream.
“The Last State to Honor MLK: Utah and the Quest for Racial Justice” by Matthew L. Harris and Madison S. Harris
November 2, 1983, was a historic day at the White House. There President Ronald Reagan signed a bill to create a federal holiday on the third Monday in January named in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King. By 1999, all states had recognized the King holiday except Utah. Why did it take nearly fifteen years for Utah to honor the King holiday?
Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers
Michael K. Honey
Widely praised upon publication and now considered a classic study, Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights chronicles the southern industrial union movement from the Great Depression to the Cold War, a history that created the context for the sanitation workers’ strike that brought Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Memphis in April 1968. Michael K. Honey documents the dramatic labor battles and sometimes heroic activities of workers and organizers that helped to set the stage for segregation’s demise.
Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi
John Dittmer
For decades, the nation’s most racially repressive state fought bitterly and violently to maintain white supremacy. John Dittmer traces the monumental battle waged by civil rights organizations and local people, particularly courageous members of the black communities who put their lives on the line to establish basic human rights for all citizens of the state.
The National Alliance of Black Feminists: A History
Ileana Nachescu
Founded in 1975, the non-partisan National Alliance of Black Feminists (NABF) played a critical role in the Black women’s liberation movement and the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment. The Chicago-based organization’s Black humanist feminism powered a singular dedication to building coalitions while influencing its historic set of comprehensive political, economic, and cultural demands.
“’Blue-Gray, Without Black’: Profit, Publicity, and the Desegregation of the Blue-Gray All-Star Football Classic” by Elissa True Miller
This article examines the 1960s desegregation controversy of the Blue-Gray All-Star Football Classic, which ultimately ended the game’s twenty-seven-year-long segregation policy. The complicated relationship among profit, publicity, and social change in Montgomery during the 1960s is exemplified through the Blue-Gray game’s desegregation fiasco, which ultimately reveals the role of capital and media in reshaping the reluctant American South during the civil rights era.
Unlearning the Hush: Oral Histories of Black Female Educators in Mississippi in the Civil Rights Era
Marlee S. Bunch
Foreword by Christopher M. Span
Despite significant challenges and historical opposition, Black female teachers stood at the forefront of advocating for and providing education to Black students. Their dedication not only improved opportunities for Black communities but also influenced changes in U.S. laws and societal expectations.
Inspiring and immersive, Unlearning the Hush blends personal memory with Civil Rights history to document the pivotal role Black women played in education during a transformative and charged period in American history.
Have You Got Good Religion?: Black Women’s Faith, Courage, and Moral Leadership in the Civil Rights Movement
AnneMarie Mingo
A depiction of moral imagination that resonates today, Have You Got Good Religion? reveals how Black Churchwomen’s understanding of God became action and transformed a nation.
Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement
Aniko Bodroghkozy
Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement explores the crucial role of network television in reconfiguring new attitudes in race relations during the civil rights movement. Due to widespread coverage, the civil rights revolution quickly became the United States’ first televised major domestic news story. This important medium unmistakably influenced the ongoing movement for African American empowerment, desegregation, and equality.
“Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Legacy of Boston Personalism” by J. Edward Hackett
The interpretation of King as a personalist rests on four evidential sources: (1) King’s own words, (2) family background, (3) influence of personalist ideas on his writings, and (4) the tradition of King’s reception by other Boston personalists.
The Resounding Revolution: Freedom Song after 1968
Stephen Stacks
Far from being bounded by the timeframe of the 1960s, freedom song continues to evolve as a tool both of historical memory and of present activism. Stephen Stacks looks at how post-1968 freedom song helps us negotiate our present relationship to the era while at the same time sustaining the contemporary struggle inspired by it.
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
“Martin Luther King Jr. and Mormonism: Dialogue, Race, and Pluralism” by Roy Whitaker
*OPEN ACCESS*
This essay approaches intrafaith dialogue within Mormonism by examining Martin Luther King Jr.’s perspective on dialogue and race—including his acts of civil disobedience and his studies of the comparative philosophy of religion. He has been a vital resource for Mormon scholars, leaders, and laity to readdress cultural, political, and religious concerns within their tradition.
Reparations and Reparatory Justice: Past, Present, and Future
Edited by Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua, Mary Frances Berry, and V. P. Franklin
Groundbreaking and innovative, Reparations and Reparatory Justice offers a multifaceted resource to anyone wishing to explore a defining moral issue of our time.