Freedom Civil

Home is, in effect, the ideological autobiography of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka. The two dozen essays that constitute this book were written during a five-year span - a turbulent and critical period for African Americans and Whites. The Cuban Revolution, the Birmingham bombings, Robert Williams’s Monroe Defense movement, the Harlem riots, the assassination of Malcolm X...each changed the way Jones/Baraka looked at America. This progressive change is recorded with honesty, anger, and passion in his writings.

Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, the leading free expression organisation, argues that alongside the necessary and long-overdue elevation of minority voices in recent years, there has also arisen an uncompromising intolerance. Charlotte Lydia Riley, historian of empire and editor of The Free Speech Wars, argues that accusations of cancel culture and defences of free speech are too often disingenuous attempts to fuel a culture war.

The gripping story of the life and education of one of America's most innovative and idealistic lawyers.

The world's eyes were on Mississippi during the summer of 1964, when civil rights activists launched an ambitious African American voter registration project and were met with violent resistance from white supremacists. Sue Sojourner and her husband arrived in Holmes County, Mississippi, in the wake of this historic time, known as "Freedom Summer". Thunder of Freedom unites Sojourner's personal experiences with her insights regarding the dynamics of race relations in the 1960s South, providing listeners with a unique look at the struggle for rights and equality in Mississippi.

Twelve-year-old Ann Maria Weems works from sunup to sundown, wraps rags around her feet in the winter, and must do whatever her master or mistress orders—but she has something that many plantation slaves don't have. She has her wonderful family around her. To Ann, her teasing brothers, her older sister, and her protective and loving parents are everything. And then one day, they are gone. Separated from her family by her master and shipped off as a housemaid, Ann learns something about independence and about love before the opportunity for escape arrives.

By the end of the Civil War, nearly half a million slaves had taken refuge behind Union lines in what became known as "contraband camps". These were crowded, dangerous places, yet some 12 to 15 percent of the Confederacy's slave population took almost unimaginable risks to reach them, and they became the first places Northerners came to know former slaves en masse.

In Lighting the Fires of Freedom Janet Dewart Bell shines a light on women’s all-too-often overlooked achievements in the Movement. Through wide-ranging conversations with nine women, several now in their nineties with decades of untold stories, we hear what ignited and fueled their activism, as Bell vividly captures their inspiring voices. Lighting the Fires of Freedom offers these deeply personal and intimate accounts of extraordinary struggles for justice that resulted in profound social change, stories that remain important and relevant today.

In the early United States, anthems, flags, holidays, monuments, and memorials were powerful symbols of an American identity that helped unify a divided people. A language of freedom played a similar role in shaping the new nation. Resonating across the country, they encouraged the creation of a republic where the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was universal.

This work fills an important gap in the literature of slavery's demise. Unlike other authors who focus largely on specific time periods or regional areas, Allen Carden presents a thematically structured national synthesis of emancipation. Freedom's Delay offers a comprehensive and unique overview of the process of manumission commencing in 1776 when slavery was a national institution, not just the southern experience known historically by most Americans.

In the summer of 1964, with the civil rights movement stalled, seven hundred college students descended on Mississippi to register black voters, teach in Freedom Schools, and live in sharecroppers' shacks. But by the time their first night in the state had ended, three volunteers were dead, black churches had burned, and America had a new definition of freedom.

Based on more than a decade of archival research and interviews with dozens of surviving friends and colleagues of Rustin's, Lost Prophet is a triumph. Rustin emerges as a hero of the black freedom struggle and a singularly important figure in the lost gay history of the mid-20th century. John D'Emilio's compelling narrative rescues a forgotten figure and brings alive a time of great hope and great tragedy in the not-so-distant past.

From their founding, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) educated as many as 90 percent of Black college students in the United States. Although many are aware of the significance of HBCUs in expanding Black Americans' educational opportunities, much less attention has been paid to the vital role that they have played in expanding American democracy. In The Power of Black Excellence, Deondra Rose provides an authoritative history of HBCUs and the unique role they have played in shaping American democracy since 1865.

Does free speech have limits? Can torture be justified? Who is really in charge of your rights? Every day we are confronted with news of foreign governments who refuse to acknowledge liberties that we in the Western world take for granted. But civil liberties are nearly always under threat, no matter where you live. Tom Head traverses the globe in order to provide a clear introduction to what civil liberties are and why they're worth defending.

It was the final speech of a long day, August 28, 1963, when hundreds of thousands gathered on the Mall for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In a resounding cadence, Martin Luther King Jr. lifted the crowd when he told of his dream that all Americans would join together to realize the founding ideal of equality. The power of the speech created an enduring symbol of the march and the larger civil rights movement. King's speech still inspires us fifty years later, but its very power has also narrowed our understanding of the march.

From gun control to reproductive health, a conservative Supreme Court will reshape the lives of all Americans for decades to come. The time to develop and defend a progressive vision of the US Constitution that protects the rights of all people is now.

Blending the journalistic rigor of Masha Gessen with the call to action of We Should All Be Feminists, a startling denunciation of Vladimir Putin’s war on women that reveals how modern Russia’s history of weaponizing sexual violence against women is part of the Russian leader’s strategy to retain political influence and domination.

America’s anti-gun lobby wants you to “leave guns to the professionals.” The police and military will protect you, they say. Really? Ask the people of Israel how well that worked out for them. On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 Israelis in cold blood. Civilians waited in anguish for the army or police to rescue them. Why? Because the country’s restrictive gun laws left most people unarmed. The Israeli government made an immediate about-face after October 7. They loosened gun laws to allow as many citizens as possible to arm themselves.

Despite fierce prejudice and abuse, even being beaten to within an inch of her life, Fannie Lou Hamer was a champion of civil rights from the 1950s until her death in 1977. Integral to the Freedom Summer of 1964, Ms. Hamer gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention that, despite President Johnson's interference, aired on national TV news and spurred the nation to support the Freedom Democrats.

Reflexión erudita, testimonio urgente y alegato políticamente poderoso de Sebreli que, al cumplir noventa años, en plena pandemia del Covid-19, habiéndose contagiado y recuperado, rescata el concepto clásico de desobediencia civil y lo propone como modo de resistencia responsable a los atropellos a la libertad y de defensa de la democracia.

For Henry David Thoreau, there was no separation between public politics and personal principle. "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" is his famous account of the night he spent in jail for refusing to pay taxes to a government that supported slavery and waged war. His impassioned stand for justice later inspired Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and many other peaceful revolutionaries. This volume includes Thoreau's other important political writings: "A Plea for Captain John Brown", "Life Without Principle", and the poem "Independence".