Movement Bibliography
Books Recommended by Freedom Movement Veterans

Memoirs and Biographies
History and Analysis

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Memoirs and Biographies

• Autobiography of a Freedom Rider: My Life as a Foot Soldier for Civil Rights, by Thomas Armstrong and Natalie Bell. A model for personal empowerment through civic engagement, and furthering the realization of America's democratic ideals.

• Barefootin': Life Lessons from the Road to Freedom, by Unita Blackwell & Joanne Prichard Morris. "This book teaches you so much about being an activist and where your committment should stay."

• The Children, by David Halberstam. "The stories of the young activists who built the Movement in the early days, the Nashville sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, and their lives after."

• Coming of Age in Mississippi, by Anne Moody. "A classic. Captures the sense of what it's like for a young woman growing up in a poor Black environment."

• Ella Baker: Freedom Bound, by Joanne Grant. An account of Ella Baker and the central role she played in the Movement.

• Freedom's Children, by Ellen Levine. (Recommended for grades 6-12.) First-person accounts of 30 young Freedom Movement activists.

• Freedom Summer, by Sally Belfrage. "A good companion to 'Letters From Mississippi.'"

• From the Mississippi Delta, by Endesha Mae Holland. "Anyone who reads this learns about poverty and class, about the importance of movements and how they change peoples' lives, and about committment — it's all there."

• Great Courage, by Anthony E. Amerson. Biography of Lucius D. Amerson, the first Black sheriff elected in the South since reconstruction, in racially charged Macon County, Alabama.

• It Was Never About a Hotdog and a Coke: A Personal Account of the 1960 Sit-in Demonstrations in Jacksonville, Florida and Ax Handle Saturday, by Rodney L. Hurst Sr. Personal account by the NAACP Jacksonville Youth Council president of the 1960 sit-ins & "Ax Handle Saturday," when nonviolent protesters were attacked by 200 whites with ax handles and baseball bats.

• Lay Bare the Heart: An Autobiography of the Civil Rights Movement, by James Farmer. Personal story of the CORE leader, one of the major figures of the Movement.

• Outside Agitator: Jon Daniels and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, by Charles Eagles. "Gives an idea of who he really was."

• Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael, by Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) with Ekwueme Michael Thelwell. "Reads beautiful. A great book."

• Sammy Younge, Jr.: The First Black College Student to Die in the Black Liberation Movement, by James Forman. "About the Movement in Alabama that nobody every writes about."

• Soon We Will Not Cry: The Liberation of Ruby Doris Smith Robinson, by Cynthia Griggs Fleming. Story of a major leader in SNCC, and the struggle for women's rights.

History and Analysis

• America in the King Years (Trilogy), by Taylor Branch
        Parting the Waters, America in the King Years 1954-1963
        Pillar of Fire, America in the King Years 1963-1965
        At Canaan's Edge — America in the King Years 1965-68
  "Indispensable."

• In the Shadow of Selma: The Continuing Struggle for Civil Rights in the Rural South, by Cynthia Griggs Fleming.

• I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle, by Charles Payne. "An important book. The Movement from the grassroots level, what it was like to build a movement in a town like Greenwood. And what the Movement meant to the people who were in it. The Movement from the inside looking out, rather than from the outside looking in."

• Letters From Mississippi: Reports from Civil Rights Volunteers & Poetry of the 1964 Freedom Summer, by Elizabeth (Betita) Sutherland Martinez. "The new edition with the Freedom School poetry makes it just a gem of a book on the Mississippi Summer Project."

• Local People: the Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi, by John Dittmer. Prize-winning book about the Movement in Mississippi from the point of view of the local people who lived it.

• The Movement, by Lorrain Hansberry and Elizabeth (Betita) Sutherland Martinez. "One of the best books about the Movement ever written. It motivated me to go South and join the struggle."

• Peace and Freedom: The Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements in the 1960s, by Simon Hall. Explores the links between the CRM and the Vietnam War and the relationship between Black organizations and the Anti-War Movement.

• Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, by David J. Garrow. "One of my favorites."

• Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality, by Richard Kluger. "Not just the story of Brown v Board of Education, but also a remarkable pre-Brown history of the South"

• SNCC: The New Abolitionists, by Howard Zinn. "The best book about SNCC. [Zinn] wrote it while it was happening. He was there."

• Stride Toward Freedom, by Martin Luther King. "Not just the story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, but also the first expression of Dr. King's long journey and who he became."

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