Multiple Viewpoints on the Civil Rights Movement

The civil rights movement is one of the most significant events in the history of our country, made even more important by the fact that it is still an issue in our society today.  I think this bibliography gives young adults a number of different viewpoints on

the struggles of African-Americans in the 1950s and 60s, and hopefully will help them gain a better understanding of the sacrifices they made and what they were able to accomplish. 

~Gene Hayes

Levine, E. (1993). Freedom’s Children: Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own

            Stories. New York: G.P.Putnam’s Sons.

The names of those whose voices are heard in these pages are not recorded in textbooks, yet their childhoods in Alabama, Mississippi or Arkansas were marked by acts of extraordinary courage that collectively altered the course of American history. They were among the participants, and in some cases the leaders, of numerous civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s, many of which had violent, tragic outcomes. These individuals, whom Levine doggedly tracked down, were some of the first black young people to attend formerly all-white schools; to participate in sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in stores; to become Freedom Riders, protesting illegal segregation on interstate buses; and to wage the arduous, bloody fight to secure voting rights for blacks. Chronicling all of these campaigns--as well as shocking incidents of senseless beatings, unjust jailings and murders--these first-person accounts are articulate and affecting. Representative are the words of Gladis Williams, repeatedly arrested for taking part in protests during her high school years in Montgomery: "So far as having fear, we didn't even know what fear was. We just had our minds set on freedom, and that was it." (Publisher’s Weekly)

This is a terrific book containing the personal accounts of thirty African-Americans who were children and teens living in the South during the civil rights movement.  Each chapter covers a different aspect of the struggle with an introduction to the subject, school integration and the Montgomery bus boycott are two of the topics covered, followed by the stories of those who lived through it.  

Archer, J. (1993). They Had a Dream: The Civil Rights Struggle from Frederick

            Douglass to Marcus Garvey to Martin Luther King to Malcolm X. New York:

            Viking Press

Engagingly written biographies of four civil rights leaders, mentioning the mistakes and weaknesses--as well as the strong moral sense, high purpose, and outstanding courage--of each. Archer also places each firmly in his historical context, including numerous details and incidents that vividly evoke the social climate--a prominent white abolitionist can't bring himself to walk side by side in public with Frederick Douglass; conflicts between Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. DuBois over Garvey's flashy posturing; or class differences among supporters of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. Archer's carefully balanced approach extends to a long concluding chapter on ``The Black Struggle Today and Tomorrow,'' discussing political events since King's death, new forms of racism, and last year's Rodney King case. An excellent resource. (Kirkus Reviews)

I chose this book because it helps teens understand that the fight for black civil rights in America was not simply something that sprang up in the 1950s and 1960s, but rather has been going on since the first slaves were brought to this country.  It outlines the different challenges and struggles that faced four prominent civil rights leaders throughout history, as well as the issues that still need to be addressed today and into the future. 

Curry, C., et al. (2002). Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom

            Movement.  Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

 Deep in Our Hearts captures the recollections of nine white women actively involved in "The Movement" in the '60s. Each woman's experience was different (though some appear as relatively minor characters in other's stories), so these oral histories provide a range of perspectives on an important period. One major contribution of these narratives is dispelling stereotypes: the authors came from a variety of backgrounds (they weren't all "red diaper babies" from the East Coast) and have spent their post-Movement days in many professions, although virtually all remain committed to social justice. Full of vivid insights into what really happened during those troubled times. (Booklist)

I did not find many books that focus on the role that white people had in the fight to support civil rights, and I think this book helps teens understand that whites from all different backgrounds supported and worked for the civil rights movement.  

Lanier, C and Page, L. (2009). A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock

            Central High School. New York: Ballantine Books

At 14, Lanier was the youngest of the Little Rock Nine, who integrated Little Rock Central High School in 1951; she went on to become the first African –American young woman to receive a diploma from the school. Her memoir provides a firsthand account of a seismic shift in American history. She recalls the well-reported violence outside the school and daily harassment and ineffective protection from teachers and guards. Away from school, the Nine were honored and feted, but their parents found their jobs—even their lives—in jeopardy. Lanier's house was bombed, and a childhood friend, Herbert Monts, was falsely accused and convicted. Monts's account of his experiences, shared with Lanier, 43 years later, is historically newsworthy. Lanier's recollections of family history and her relatively pedestrian experiences after high school graduation (graduate school, job hunting, marrying, finding her new home in Denver) lack the drama of her historical moment. In a sense, Lanier didn't make history, history made her. Her plainspoken report from the front line is, nevertheless, a worthy contribution to the history of civil rights in America. (Publisher’s Weekly)

The Brown vs. the Board of Education case was one of the landmark moments of the civil rights movement, and I thought a memoir by one of the first black students to integrate a southern high school would be a powerful resource to help young adults realize and understand the struggles teens went through. 

Bowers, R. (2010).  Spies of Mississippi: The True Story of the Spy Network that Tried to

            Destroy the Civil Rights Movement. Washington, DC: National Geographic

*Starred Review* With all the books on the civil rights movement for young people, it’s hard to believe there’s a topic that hasn’t yet been touched. But Bowers, through impeccable research and personal investigation, seems to have come up with something chillingly new. In 1956, the state of Mississippi conceived a Sovereignty Commission that began as a propaganda outlet and morphed into a spy network, with a goal of stopping integration and crushing the civil rights movement in the state. Written with clarity and understated power, the book methodically shows how white politicians organized the network and willing blacks accepted payment to infiltrate groups like the NAACP, or in some cases rail against civil rights organizations in churches and African American newspapers. After the election of Governor Ross Barnett, the commission’s tactics grew bolder, and violence became a part of the mix. Those with knowledge of the era will find this a vivid depiction of those turbulent days, but for them as well as students new to the history the extremes will be an eye-opener. (Booklist)

Unlike the majority of books on this subject, Spies of Mississippi describes the struggle against the civil rights movement, with first-hand accounts of how a network organized by white politicians employed blacks to spy on their neighbors and try to undermine integration and end civil rights for blacks. 

    

Falkner, D. (1997). Great Time Coming: The Life of Jackie Robinson from Baseball to

            Birmingham. New York: Touchstone

Far more than a sports book, this is an in-depth portrait of an individual of admirable simplicity and forthrightness, as well as a great athlete. Born in Georgia but raised in Southern California, Robinson was a gifted athlete in many sports in high school and junior college and while at UCLA. It was his intensity and fury, born partly from discrimination, that made him a fighter. Those same qualities got him in trouble as a lieutenant in the segregated U.S. Army during WWII, but brought him success at last when he broke the color line in major league baseball. His spectacular career on the diamond is well known, but Falkner (The Last Yankee) goes beyond his subject's sporting career to detail what happened to Robinson from the time he left the Dodgers in 1957 until his death in 1972. He relates how Robinson devoted himself to the goal of integration with equal rights for all, while around him swirled struggles by the NAACP, the Black Panthers and the Republican and Democratic parties to ally themselves with Robinson, the legend and the symbol, and while diabetes wracked his body. (Publishers Weekly)

I thought that a book that looks at civil rights through the world of sports would give a somewhat different perspective from the rest of this list, as well as be a good option for reluctant readers who try to avoid “history” books.  I actually did not realize how much Jackie Robinson was involved with civil rights after his baseball career, and I think his story is a valuable addition to a bibliography on civil rights. 

Brinkley, D. (2000). Rosa Parks: A Life. New York: Penguin

Parks called the evening she didn't give up her seat "a stopping place . . . for me to stop being pushed around and to find out what human rights I had, if any." Parks' moment of resistance has become iconic, but her lifetime of civil rights work is less familiar. University of New Orleans historian Brinkley tells the story of that work in this latest Penguin Lives entry. Brinkley earns awards and acclaim because he understands that writing history is telling a story. Rosa Parks' story takes readers from rural Alabama to the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, marriage to barber Raymond Parks, quiet activism in the '30s and '40s, a first experience of integration at the Highlander Folk School, arrest in 1955 and the bus boycott, a move to Detroit, and more than 20 years on the staff of Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). In his bibliographical notes, Brinkley calls Parks "America's real-life Miss Jane Pittman, not a saint, but a symbol of the triumph of steadfastness in the name of justice." (Booklist)

I had a hard time deciding between this title and Rosa Parks: My Story, an autobiography, but I eventually chose this title because I felt it was geared more towards adults, both young and otherwise, while My Story seems more suited for younger readers.  While I knew the story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott, I had no idea how much she contributed to the civil rights movement over the rest of her life, which makes her story that much more important a part of civil rights history. 

Whitt, M., ed. (2006). Short Stories of the Civil Rights Movement: An Anthology.

            Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press

Short Stories of the Civil Rights Movement comes at a time when public awareness of life in the segregated South and of trials of the Civil Rights Era seem to be fading. With this anthology, Whitt hopes to raise that awareness again, by introducing readers to one of the most intense periods of American history. (Black Issues Book Review)

Short Stories of the Civil Rights Movement is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the many perspectives on and the myriad emotions behind the historical events of one of the most transformative periods in American history. (Suzanne Jones, author of Race Mixing: Southern Fiction since the Sixties)

I wanted to include some fiction in this bibliography, and I thought a collection of short works would be the best way to get a variety of perspectives on the struggle for civil rights. The book is divided into sections that include Marches and Demonstrations and Acts of Violence, and contains twenty three stories by both black and white authors, including John Updike and Alice Walker.  I like the fact that the collection includes stories written during the fifties and sixties as well as more contemporary fiction (the most recent was written in 2003), so teens can see stories written during the height of the civil rights movement as well as some written with some time for perspective. 

Crowe, C. (2003). Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case.     

            New York: Dial Press.

 Grade 7 Up-"The Emmett Till case was not the sole cause of the civil rights movement, but it was the final indignity that caused the flood of outrage to overflow the dam of racial injustice." Mainstream history has all but forgotten about this 14-year-old African American from Chicago who was murdered by two white men in Mississippi for making "ugly remarks" to one of their wives. The men were acquitted, and several months later, they were interviewed by Look magazine and publicly confessed to the crime. The event galvanized black Americans, and even many of the whites who had supported the defendants were appalled at their national confession. Four months after Till was killed, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, and the wheels of the civil rights movement were set in motion. Crowe's research is extensive and his writing is well suited to his audience. The black-and-white photographs add tension and realism to the story. The picture of the boy in his casket originally published in The Chicago Defender is a graphic, powerful testament to the brutality of the crime. This book is a mandatory addition to all libraries because of the impact and importance this crime had on our history. (School Library Journal)

This is a really powerful story that a lot of people have never heard of, and I think that the tragedy of what happened to Emmett Till will really strike a chord with teens and help them understand the depths of the injustices that the civil rights movement was trying to correct.