Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920

Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression

Robin D.G. Kelley · 392 pages

A groundbreaking contribution to the history of the "long Civil Rights movement," Hammer and Hoe tells the story of how, during the 1930s and 40s, Communists took on Alabama's repressive, racist police state to fight for economic justice, civil and political rights, and racial equality. The Alabama Communist Party was made up of working people without a Euro-American radical political tradition: d

At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America

Philip Dray · 528 pages

It is easy to shrink from our country's brutal history of lynching. Lynching is called the last great skeleton in our nation's closet: It terrorized all of black America, claimed thousands upon thousands of victims in the decades between the 1880s and the Second World War, and leaves invisible but deep scars to this day. The cost of pushing lynching into the shadows, however--misremembering it as

Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America

Patrick Phillips · 302 pages

"A gripping tale of racial cleansing in Forsyth County, Georgia and ... testament to the deep roots of racial violence in America ... Patrick Phillips breaks the century-long silence of his hometown and uncovers a history of racial terrorism that continues to shape America in the twenty-first century"--

A People's History of the United States

Howard Zinn · 702 pages

Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, *A People's History of the United States* is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers.

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race

Margot Lee Shetterly · 312 pages

"Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of the

The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan

Laurence Leamer · 378 pages

"The New York Times bestselling author of The Kennedy Women chronicles the powerful and spellbinding true story of a brutal race-based killing in 1981 and subsequent trials that undid one of the most pernicious organizations in American history--the Ku Klux Klan. On a Friday night in March 1981 Henry Hays and James Knowles scoured the streets of Mobile in their car, hunting for a black man. The yo

In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose

Alice Walker · 397 pages

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II

Douglas A. Blackmon · 474 pages

In this groundbreaking historical expose, Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history--an "Age of Neoslavery" that thrived from the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II.Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for

Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case

Chris Crowe · 144 pages

Presents a true account of the murder of fourteen-year-old, Emmett Till, in Mississippi, in 1955.

The Strange Career of Jim Crow

C. Vann Woodward, William S. McFeely · 205 pages

The Strange Career of Jim Crow is one of the great works of Southern history. Indeed, the book actually helped shape that history. Published in 1955, a year after the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education ordered schools desegregated, Strange Career was cited so often to counter arguments for segregation that Martin Luther King, Jr. called it "the historical Bible of the civil rights moveme

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

Isabel Wilkerson · 635 pages

In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. She interviewed more than a t

At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power

Danielle L. McGuire · 324 pages

Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story

Martin Luther King Jr. · 230 pages

Chronicles the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott sparked by Mrs. Rosa Park's refusal to give up her seat to a white male, describing the plans and problems of a nonviolent campaign, reprisals by the white community, and the eventual attainment of desegrated city bus service.

Ida: A Sword Among Lions

Paula J. Giddings · 824 pages

Traces the life and legacy of the nineteenth-century activist and pioneer, documenting her birth into slavery, her career as a journalist and a pioneer for civil rights and suffrage, and her determination to counter lynching.

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.

Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution

Diane McWhorter · 720 pages

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Rebecca Skloot · 381 pages

A Disability History of the United States

Kim E. Nielsen · 228 pages

Covers the entirety of U.S. disability history, from pre-1492 to the present. Disability is not just the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may become; rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation. It places the experiences of people with disabilities at the center of the American narrative. In many ways, it's a familiar telling. In other ways, however, it is a radical reposition

Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock

David Margolick · 315 pages

"The names Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery may not be well known, but the image of them from September 1957 surely is: a black high school girl, dressed in white, walking stoically in front of Little Rock Central High School, and a white girl standing directly behind her, face twisted in hate, screaming racial epithets. This famous photograph captures the full anguish of desegregation --

Up from Slavery

Booker T. Washington · 192 pages

Booker T. Washington, the most recognized national leader, orator and educator, emerged from slavery in the deep south, to work for the betterment of African Americans in the post Reconstruction period. "Up From Slavery" is an autobiography of Booker T. Washington's life and work, which has been the source of inspiration for all Americans. Washington reveals his inner most thoughts as he transi

The Children

David Halberstam · 783 pages

The Children is David Halberstam's moving evocation of the early days of the civil rights movement, as seen through the story of the young people - the Children - who met in the 1960s and went on to lead the revolution. The Children is a story one of America's preeminent journalists has waited years to write, a powerful book about one of the most dramatic moments in recent American history. They

Long Walk to Freedom

Nelson Mandela · 638 pages

The riveting memoirs of the outstanding moral and political leader of our time, Long Walk to Freedom brilliantly recreates the drama of the experiences that helped shape Nelson Mandela's destiny. Emotive, compelling and uplifting, Long Walk to Freedom is the exhilarating story of an epic life; a story of hardship, resilience and ultimate triumph told with the clarity and eloquence of a born leader

A Queer History of the United States

Michael Bronski · 287 pages

"A Queer History of the United States is groundbreaking and accessible. It looks at how American culture has shaped the LGBT, or queer, experience, while simultaneously arguing that LGBT people not only shaped but were pivotal in creating our country. Using numerous primary documents and literature, as well as social histories, Bronski's book takes the reader through the centuries--from Columbus'

An African American and Latinx History of the United States

Paul Ortiz · 296 pages