Civil Rights Biography

Susan Burton's world changed in an instant when her five-year-old son was killed by a van driving down their street. Consumed by grief and without access to professional help, Susan self-medicated, becoming addicted first to cocaine then to crack. As a resident of South Los Angeles, a Black community under siege in the War on Drugs, it was but a matter of time before Susan was arrested. She cycled in and out of prison for over 15 years; never was she offered therapy or treatment for addiction.

On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the pulpit of Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, and delivered what would be his final speech. Voiced in support of the Memphis Sanitation Worker’s Strike, Dr. King's words continue to be powerful and relevant as workers continue to organize, unionize, and strike across various industries today. Withstanding the test of time, this speech serves as a galvanizing call to create and maintain unity among all people.

Ginsburg and Amanda Tyler, Berkeley Law professor and former Ginsburg law clerk, bring together RBG's most penetrating opinions - many previously unpublished - sharing details from Justice Ginsburg's family life and long career.

Often remembered as the president who died shortly after taking office, William Henry Harrison remains misunderstood by most Americans. Before becoming the ninth president of the United States in 1841, Harrison was instrumental in shaping the early years of westward expansion. Robert M. Owens now explores that era through the lens of Harrison’s career, providing a new synthesis of his role in the political development of Indiana Territory and in shaping Indian policy in the Old Northwest.

A riveting work of literary journalism that explores the infamous police killing of Eric Garner - from the New York Times best-selling author of The Divide.

This audio adaptation focuses primarily on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the key moments that defined his rise to the forefront of the civil rights movement. From Rosa Parks' monumental arrest in Montgomery to King's imprisonment in Birmingham and his triumphant march on Washington, Taylor Branch provides an unsurpassed portrait of King's rise to greatness.

Fearless lawyer, feminist, activist, television and radio commentator, warrior, advocate, and winner, Gloria Allred is all of these things and more. Voted by her peers as one of the best lawyers in America, and described by Time as "one of the nation's most effective advocates of family rights and feminist causes", Allred has devoted her career to fighting for civil rights across boundaries of gender, race, age, sexual orientation, and social class.

In 2005, Dana Canedy’s fiancé, First Sergeant Charles Monroe King, began to write what would become a 200-page journal for his son in case he did not make it home from the war in Iraq. He was killed by a roadside bomb on October 14, 2006. His son, Jordan, was seven months old. Inspired by his example, Dana was determined to preserve his memory for their son. A Journal for Jordan is a mother’s fiercely honest letter to her child about the parent he lost before he could even speak. It is also a father’s advice and prayers for the son he will never know.

An analytical, sometimes revisionist, succinct biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

When 6-year-old Ruby Bridges and her mother went to William Frantz Elementary School on November 14, 1960, they arrived to find an angry crowd of white people shouting racist insults. For her safety, Ruby had to be escorted to school every day by U.S. Marshals. But despite the hateful attitudes of others, Ruby didn't miss a single day of school that year.

Most people have heard about Rosa Parks’s brave actions that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. But there were other Black women who challenged segregation in transportation. Three years earlier, Sarah Keys Evans—a veteran—refused to give up her seat on a bus traveling through the South.

Dorothy L. Sayers is now famous for her Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane detective series, but she was equally well known during her life for an essay asking “Are Women Human?” Women’s rights were expanding rapidly during Sayers’s lifetime; she and her friends were some of the first women to receive degrees from Oxford. Yet, as historian Mo Moulton reveals, it was clear from the many professional and personal obstacles they faced that society was not ready to concede that women were indeed fully human.

Veteran White House reporter April Ryan thought she had seen everything in her two decades as a White House correspondent. And then came the Trump administration. In Under Fire, Ryan takes us inside the confusion and chaos of the Trump White House to understand how she and other reporters adjusted to the new normal. She takes us inside the policy debates, the revolving door of personnel appointments, and what it is like when she, as a reporter asking difficult questions, finds herself in the spotlight, becoming part of the story.

The Right Side of History tells the 100-year history of queer activism in a series of revealing close-ups, first-person accounts, and intimate snapshots of LGBT pioneers and radicals. This diverse cast stretches from the Edwardian period to today, including first-person accounts of the key protest that is at the heart of the 2015 movie Stonewall. The book shows how LGBT folk have always been in the forefront of progressive social evolution in the United States.

What does it mean to be American? In this starkly illuminating and impassioned book, Pulitzer Prize­­-finalist Laila Lalami recounts her unlikely journey from Moroccan immigrant to US citizen, using it as a starting point for her exploration of American rights, liberties, and protections.

A blend of social commentary, biography, and intellectual history, Until I Am Free is a manifesto for anyone committed to social justice. The book challenges us to listen to a working-poor and disabled Black woman activist and intellectual of the civil rights movement as we grapple with contemporary concerns around race, inequality, and social justice.

John Barnes spent the first dozen years of his life in Jamaica before moving to the UK with his family in 1975. Six years later, he was a professional footballer, distinguishing himself for Watford, Liverpool and England, and in the process, becoming this country's most prominent Black player. Barnes is now an articulate and captivating social commentator on a broad range of issues, and in The Uncomfortable Truth About Racism, he tackles head-on the issues surrounding prejudice with his trademark intelligence and authority.

At 18, Charles Person was the youngest of the original Freedom Riders, key figures in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement who left Washington, D.C. by bus in 1961, headed for New Orleans.

Former New York Times correspondent John N. Herbers (1923-2017), who covered the civil rights movement for more than a decade, has produced Deep South Dispatch: Memoir of a Civil Rights Journalist, a compelling story of national and historical significance. Herbers' reporting began in 1951, when he covered the brutal execution of Willie McGee, a Black man convicted for the rape of a White housewife, and the 1955 trial for the murder of Emmett Till, a Black teenager killed for allegedly whistling at a White woman.

In the early 20th century over 200 of New York's most glamorous socialites joined the suffrage movement. Their names - Astor, Belmont, Rockefeller, Tiffany, Vanderbilt, Whitney, and the like - carried enormous public value. These women were the media darlings of their day because of the extravagance of their costume balls and the opulence of the French couture clothes, and they leveraged their social celebrity for political power, turning women's right to vote into a fashionable cause.