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Who Was Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Bonnie Bader · back to the book

What’s in it

Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.

24 books with the same feel

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Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King Jr.

Stephen B. Oates · 562 pages

The first major biography of King, based on extensive research in manuscript collections, traces King's personal development as well as the development of his ideas on protest and nonviolent resistance, from the influence of Thoreau and Gandhi through the details of his participation in the Civil Rights Movement.

Civil Rights MovementBiographyPolitical BiographyNonfiction
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Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography

Andrew Helfer · 112 pages

The age of multitasking needs better narrative history. It must be absolutely factual, immediately accessible, smart, and brilliantly fun. Enter Andrew Helfer, the award-winning graphic-novel editor behind Road to Perdition and The History of Violence, and welcome the launch of a unique line of graphic biographies. If a picture is worth a thousand words, these graphic biographies qualify as tomes.

Civil Rights MovementBiographyPolitical BiographyNonfiction
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Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Life

Marshall Frady · 224 pages

Civil Rights MovementBiographyPolitical BiographyNonfiction
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Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America

Wil Haygood · 410 pages

"The author of The Butler presents a revelatory biography of the first African-American Supreme Court justice--one of the giants of the civil rights movement, and one of the most transforming Supreme Court justices of the 20th century,"--Novelist.

Civil Rights MovementBiographyPolitical BiographyNonfiction
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Civil Rights MovementBiographyPolitical BiographyNonfiction
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Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin

John D'Emilio · 568 pages

Bayard Rustin is one of the most important figures in the history of the American civil rights movement. Before Martin Luther King, before Malcolm X, Bayard Rustin was working to bring the cause to the forefront of America's consciousness. A teacher to King, an international apostle of peace, and the organizer of the famous 1963 March on Washington, he brought Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence to

Civil Rights MovementBiographyPolitical BiographyNonfiction
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Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention

Manning Marable · 601 pages

Of the great figures in twentieth-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his own story, he became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and an icon, all before being felled by assassins' bullets at age thirty-nine. Through his tireless work and countless speeches he empowered hundreds of thousands of black Americans to create better

Civil Rights MovementBiographyPolitical BiographyNonfiction
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Nelson Mandela

Kadir Nelson · 40 pages

Presents a biography of the former South African president best known for his political activism and fight to end apartheid.

Civil Rights MovementBiographyPolitical BiographyNonfiction
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At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965-68

Taylor Branch · 1,056 pages

This book concludes a 3-volume history of American race, violence, and democracy. As the book begins, King and his movement are one decade into an epic struggle for the promises of democracy. The quest to cross Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965 engages the conscience of the world, strains the civil rights coalition, and embroils King with the U.S. government. After Selma, freedom worke

Civil Rights MovementPolitical BiographyBiographyNonfiction
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Civil Rights MovementBiographyPolitical BiographyNonfiction
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Civil Rights MovementPolitical BiographyBiographyNonfiction
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March: Book One

John Lewis · 125 pages

March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis’ lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis’ personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. Book One spans John Lewis’ youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Lut

Civil Rights MovementPolitical BiographyBiographyNonfiction
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Civil Rights MovementBiographyPolitical BiographyNonfiction
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Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Doreen Rappaport · 40 pages

A brief biographical sketch of Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the greatest figures in the American civil rights movement.

Civil Rights MovementBiographyNonfictionRacism
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Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer

Carole Boston Weatherford · 45 pages

Presents a collage-illustrated treasury of poems and spirituals inspired by the life and work of civil rights advocate Fannie Lou Hamer.

Civil Rights MovementBiographyNonfictionRacism
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I am Rosa Parks

Brad Meltzer · 40 pages

Civil Rights MovementBiographyNonfictionRacism
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The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist

Cynthia Levinson · 40 pages

Presents the life of nine-year-old Audrey Faye Hendricks who became the youngest known child to be arrested for picketing against Birmingham segregation practices in 1963.

Civil Rights MovementBiographyNonfictionRacism
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The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama

David Remnick · 656 pages

No story has been more central to America's history this century than the rise of Barack Obama, and until now, no journalist or historian has written a book thatfully investigates the circumstances and experiences of Obama's life or explores the ambition behind his rise.Those familiar with Obama's own best-selling memoiror his campaign speeches know the touchstones and details that he chooses to e

Civil Rights MovementBiographyPolitical BiographyNonfiction
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Rosa

Nikki Giovanni · 34 pages

The story of Rosa Parks and her courageous act of defiance. Provides the story of the young black woman who refused to give up her seat to a white passenger in Alabama, setting in motion all the events of the Civil Rights Movements that resulted in the end of the segregated south, gave equality to blacks throughout the nation, and forever changed the country in which we all live today. She had not

Civil Rights MovementBiographyNonfictionRacism
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American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley - His Battle for Chicago and the Nation

Adam Cohen, Elizabeth Taylor · 614 pages

This is Chicago, this is America. With those words, Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley famously defended his brutal crackdown on protestors at the 1968 Democratic convention. Profoundly divided racially, economically, and socially, Chicago was indeed a microcosm of America, and for more than two decades Daley ruled it with an iron fist. The last of the big city bosses, Daley ran an unbeatable politica

Civil Rights MovementBiographyPolitical BiographyNonfiction
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Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power

Timothy B. Tyson · 416 pages

Robert F. Williams was suspended and made a pariah by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the organization that had been at the forefront of the Civil Rights movement, because he dared speak clear pixel of the day-to-day, street-level struggle faced by Southern blacks, and encourage that violence upon African American homes and families be met in kind. Afraid of offe

Civil Rights MovementBiographyNonfictionRacism
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The Story of Ruby Bridges

Robert Coles · 32 pages

For months six-year-old Ruby Bridges must confront the hostility of white parents when she becomes the first African American girl to integrate Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans in 1960.

Civil Rights MovementBiographyNonfictionRacism
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Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

Phillip M. Hoose · 146 pages

Based on extensive interviews with Claudette Colvin and many others, Phillip Hoose presents the first in-depth account of an important yet largely unknown civil rights figure, skillfully weaving her dramatic story into the fabric of the historic Montgomery bus boycott and court case that would change the course of American history.

Civil Rights MovementBiographyNonfictionRacism
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Master of the Senate

Robert A. Caro · 1,232 pages

Civil Rights MovementBiographyPolitical BiographyNonfiction
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