Social Civil

An urgent, essential, and practical call to action from the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion. The climate crisis threatens global social collapse. Within a generation. What to do? Common Sense for the 21st Century outlines how movements around the world now need to come together to start doing "what works". This means engaging in mass civil disobedience to make real change happen. This booklet is not just theory, it is the call to action. The political class is not going to save us from extinction.

The religious right taught America to misread the Bible. Christians have misused Scripture to consolidate power, stoke fears, and defend against enemies. But people who have been hurt by the attacks of Christian nationalism can help us rediscover God's vision for faith in public life. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove explores how religious culture wars have misrepresented Christianity at the expense of the poor, and how listening to marginalized communities can help us hear God's call to love and justice in the world.

Many of us are facing unprecedented attacks on our democracy, our privacy, and our hard-won civil rights. If you're Black in the US, this is not new. As Colorlines editors Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin show, Black Americans subvert and resist life-threatening forces as a matter of course. In this audiobook, leading organizers, artists, journalists, comedians, and filmmakers offer wisdom on how they fight white supremacy. It's a must-listen for anyone new to resistance work, and for the next generation of leaders building a better future.

Helen Lewis argues that feminism’s success is down to complicated, contradictory, imperfect women who fought each other as well as fighting for equal rights. Too many of these pioneers have been whitewashed or forgotten in our modern search for feel-good, inspirational heroines. It’s time to reclaim the history of feminism as a history of difficult women.

In We’ve Got To Try, O’Rourke shines a spotlight on the heroic life and work of Dr. Lawrence Aaron Nixon and the west Texas town where he made his stand. The son of an enslaved man, Nixon grew up in the Confederate stronghold of Marshall, Texas before moving to El Paso, becoming a civil rights leader, and helping to win one of the most significant civil and voting rights victories in American history: the defeat of the all-white primary. His fight for the ballot spanned 20 years and twice took him to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In The Shadow Factory, James Bamford, the foremost expert on National Security Agency, charts its transformation since 9/11, as the legendary code breakers turned their ears away from outside enemies, such as the Soviet Union, and inward to enemies whose communications increasingly crisscross America.

Many Americans reference the Bill of Rights, a document that represents many of the freedoms that define the United States. Who doesn’t know about the First Amendment’s freedom of religion or Second Amendment’s right to bear arms? In this succinct volume, Akhil Reed Amar and Les Adams offer a wealth of knowledge about the Bill of Rights that goes beyond a basic understanding.The Bill of Rights Primer is an authoritative guide to all American freedoms. Uncluttered and well-organized, this audiobook is perfect for those who want to study up on the Bill of Rights without needing a law degree to do so.

Aimed at listeners 12 and up and co-authored by award-winning children's book author Nic Stone, How to be a (Young) Antiracist empowers teen listeners to help create a more just society. Antiracism is a journey—and now young adults will have a map to carve their own path. Kendi and Stone have revised this work to provide anecdotes and data that speaks directly to the experiences and concerns of younger listeners, encouraging them to think critically and build a more equitable world in doing so.

By the acclaimed biographer of Abraham Lincoln, Nat Turner, and John Brown, Stephen B. Oates' prizewinning Let the Trumpet Sound is the definitive one-volume life of Martin Luther King Jr. This brilliant examination of the great civil rights icon and the movement he led provides a lasting portrait of a man whose dream shaped American history.

As the effects of aggressive policing and mass incarceration harm historically marginalized communities and tear families apart, how do we define safety? In a time when the most powerful institutions in the United States are embracing the repressive and racist systems that keep many communities struggling and in fear, we need to reimagine what safety means. Community leader and lawyer Zach Norris lays out a radical way to shift the conversation about public safety away from fear and punishment and toward growth and support systems for our families and communities.

Richard Gergel’s Unexampled Courage details the impact of the blinding of Sergeant Woodard on the racial awakening of President Truman and Judge Waring and traces their influential roles in changing the course of America’s civil rights history.

In his 60-plus years as a trial lawyer, Gerry Spence has never represented a person accused of a crime in which the police hadn't themselves violated the law. Whether by covering up their own corrupt dealings, by the falsification or manufacture of evidence, or by the outright murder of innocent civilians, those individuals charged with upholding the law break it every day - in ways more scandalous than the courts have dared admit.

In 1765, 11 years before composing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson bought a Qur'an. This marked only the beginning of his lifelong interest in Islam, and he would go on to acquire numerous books on Middle Eastern languages, history, and travel, taking extensive notes on Islam as it relates to English common law. Jefferson sought to understand Islam notwithstanding his personal disdain for the faith, a sentiment prevalent among his Protestant contemporaries in England and America.

In Before the Movement, Dylan C. Penningroth brilliantly revises the conventional story. Drawing on long-forgotten sources found in the basements of county courthouses across the nation, Penningroth reveals that African Americans, far from being ignorant about law until the middle of the twentieth century, have thought about, talked about, and used it going as far back as even the era of slavery.

In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., isolated himself from the demands of the civil rights movement, rented a house in Jamaica with no telephone, and labored over his final manuscript. In this prophetic work, which was unavailable for more than 10 years, he lays out his thoughts, plans, and dreams for America's future, including the need for better jobs, higher wages, decent housing, and quality education. With a universal message of hope that continues to resonate, King demanded an end to global suffering.

Life of a Klansman tells the story of a warrior in the Ku Klux Klan, a carpenter in Louisiana who took up the cause of fanatical racism during the years after the Civil War. Edward Ball, a descendant of the Klansman, paints a portrait of his family’s anti-Black militant that is part history, part memoir rich in personal detail.

In centering Black women’s stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women’s unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today.

To most Americans, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. represent contrasting ideals. The struggle for Black freedom is wrought with the same contrasts. While nonviolent direct action is remembered as an unassailable part of American democracy, the movement's militancy is either vilified or erased outright. In The Sword and the Shield, Peniel E. Joseph upends these misconceptions and reveals a nuanced portrait of two men who, despite markedly different backgrounds, inspired and pushed each other throughout their adult lives.

The popular Washington Post contributing opinion columnist challenges listeners to have uncomfortable conversations about race, drawing on the first-person perspectives of the author and Americans from diverse viewpoints and walks of life.

The Supreme Court has issued a decision, but that doesn't end the debate. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled, Americans face momentous debates about the nature of marriage and religious liberty. Because the Court has redefined marriage in all 50 states, we have to energetically protect our freedom to live according to conscience and faith as we work to rebuild a strong marriage culture.