Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin

Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever

Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard · 324 pages

This book is a riveting historical narrative of the heart-stopping events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the first work of history from mega-bestselling author Bill O'Reilly. The anchor of The O'Reilly Factor recounts one of the most dramatic stories in American history -- how one gunshot changed the country forever. In the spring of 1865, the bloody saga of America's Civil

Thunderstruck

Erik Larson · 480 pages

A true story of love, murder, and the end of the world's "great hush." In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men--Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication--whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America

Gilbert King · 545 pages

In 1949, Florida's orange industry was booming with cheap Jim Crow labor. When a white seventeen-year-old Groveland girl cried rape, vicious Sheriff McCall was fast on the trail of four young blacks who dared to envision a future for themselves. Then the Ku Klux Klan rolled into town, burning homes and chasing hundreds of blacks into the swamps. So began the chain of events that would bring Thurgo

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.

Bloody Crimes: The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln and the Chase for Jefferson Davis

James L. Swanson

On the morning of April 2, 1865, Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, received a telegram from General Robert E. Lee. There is no more time. The Yankees are coming, it warned. Shortly before midnight, Davis boarded a train from Richmond and fled the capital, setting off an intense and thrilling chase in which Union cavalry hunted the Confederate president. Two weeks later, President Linc

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 --

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

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.

Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris

David King · 424 pages

Death in the City of Light is the gripping true story of a brutal serial killer who unleashed his own reign of terror in Nazi-occupied Paris. As decapitated heads and dismembered body parts surfaced in the Seine, Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu, head of the Brigade Criminelle, was tasked with traking down the elusive murderer in a twilight world of Gestapo, gangsters, Resistance fighters, pimps,

In Cold Blood

Truman Capote · 343 pages

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.

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

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

Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or a Nightmare?

James H. Cone · 368 pages

Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision

Barbara Ransby · 501 pages

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

The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge

T.J. English · 474 pages

The safest big city in America? That would be the question a certain generation of New Yorkers would ask someone who praises New York for it's safety and prosperity. A generation that has experienced living in this city at a time that could only be described as a nightmare.

W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963

David Levering Lewis · 752 pages

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.

Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter

James S. Hirsch · 363 pages

Chronicles Rubin Carter's twenty-year imprisonment, discussing why he was accused of three murders he did not commit, how racial issues affected the outcome of his trial, how he earned the support of celebrities, and why a group of Canadians decided to help him prove his innocence.

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

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

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

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

Simon Winchester · 265 pages

The League of Lady Poisoners: Illustrated True Stories of Dangerous Women

Lisa Perrin · 208 pages