When the Supreme Court overturned school segregation in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, the issue was joined for the South and the nation.

In August, 1955 the body of Emmett Till was found floating in the Tallahatchie River. His mother Mamie, was determined that his death should not go unnoticed, and due to her persistence it became a national issue and the springboard for the Civil Rights Movement.

Montgomery, Alabama, 1955--the civil rights movement has begun. The authors build a narrative from the words of the people, their photographs and their songs to form an emphasis on triumph in an uncertain age. Photos and music.

In a sweeping analysis of religion in the post-Civil War and twentieth-century South, Freedom's Coming puts race and culture at the center, describing southern Protestant cultures as both priestly and prophetic: as southern formal theology sanctified dominant political and social hierarchies, evangelical belief and practice subtly undermined them. The seeds of subversion, Paul Harvey argues, were embedded in the passionate individualism, exuberant expressive forms, and profound faith of believers in the region. Harvey explains how black and white religious folk within and outside of mainstream religious groups formed a southern "evangelical counterculture" of Christian interracialism that challenged the theologically grounded racism pervasive among white southerners and ultimately helped to end Jim Crow in the South. Moving from the folk theology of segregation to the women who organized the Montgomery bus boycott, from the hymn-inspired freedom songs of the 1960s to the influence of black Pentecostal preachers on Elvis Presley, Harvey deploys cultural history in fresh and innovative ways and fills a decades-old need for a comprehensive history of Protestant religion and its relationship to the central question of race in the South for the postbellum and twentieth-century period.

Freedom on My Mind reveals the richly diverse and complex experience of black people in America in their own words, from the Colonial era of Benjamin Banneker to the present world of Kweisi Mfume and Clarence Thomas. Personal correspondence, excerpts from slave narratives and autobiographies, leaflets, significant addresses and speeches, oral histories and interviews, political manifestos, and important statements of black institutions and organizations are brought together to form a volume that testifies to the boundless creative potential of black Americans in indefatigable pursuit of the dream of freedom. Arranged thematically, the selections illustrate the politics of resistance—as reflected through gender and sexuality, kinship and community, work and leisure, faith and spirituality. They also highlight the contributions of women to black identity, history, and consciousness, and offer excerpts from the work of some of the finest stylists in the African American canon. A general introduction as well as short introductions and bibliographies for each document further enhance the usefulness of the book for students and researchers.

Minorities and Representation in American Politics is the first book of its kind to examine underrepresented minorities with a framework based on four types of representation—descriptive, formalistic, symbolic, and substantive. Through this lens, author Rebekah Herrick looks at race, ethnic, gender, and sexual minorities not in isolation but synthesized within every chapter. This enables readers to better recognize both the similarities and differences of groups’ underrepresentation. Herrick also applies her unique and constructive approach to intergroup cooperation and intersectionality, highlighting the impact that groups can have on one another.

A living history of the African American experience.