Different Perspectives
If you or your students would like to learn more about
the changing views of historians of the late 20th century
civil rights movement, try one of these. Some of them
may require an interlibrary loan request at your local
public library, but they’re worthwhile: Eagles,
Charles W. “Toward New Histories of the Civil
Rights Era.” Journal of Southern History.
66(2000): 815-848. A review of civil rights historiography
which argues that younger historians, who were not eyewitnesses
to the movement, are now showing more balance and detachment
in chronicling the era.
Huggins, Nathan Irvin. “Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Charisma and Leadership.” Journal of American
History 74(1987): 477-481. Huggins uses King’s
career to examine the difficulties historians sometime
experience in dealing with a compelling individual leader.
Lawson, Steven F., and Charles Payne. Debating the
Civil Rights Movement. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield,
1998. Part of the “Debating 20th Century America”
Series. Two prominent historians of the civil rights
movement debate their differences over interpretations.
Their essays are supplemented by useful documentary
sources.
O'Brien, Michael. “Old Myths/New Insights: History
and Dr. King.”: History Teacher 22(1988):
49-66. An article geared to the needs of high school
and college classroom teaching.
If you need more information on the grassroots, community-level
organization of the civil rights movement, you can look
at these books:
Eskew, Glenn T. But for Birmingham: The Local and
National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997.
An analysis of the interaction of the community leaders
and national organizations in this critical city.
Theoharis, Jeanne F., and Komozi Woodard, eds. Groundwork:
Local Black Freedom Movements in America. New York:
New York University Press, 2005. A collection of thirteen
essays focussing on different local civil rights movements.
Additional information on the role of women in the
civil rights movement can be found in:
Collier-Thomas, Bettye, and V.P. Franklin, eds.
Sisters in the Struggle: African-American Women in the
Civil Rights-Black Power Movement. New York: New
York University Press, 2001.
Robnett, Belinda. How Long? How Long?: African-American
Women In The Struggle For Civil Rights. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997.
For more background on the Civil Rights Congress and
Southern Conference, see these books:
Horne, Gerald. Communist Front?: The Civil Rights
Congress, 1946-1956. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh
Dickinson University Press; London: Associated University
Presses, 1988.
Krueger, Thomas A. And Promises to Keep: The Southern
Conference for Human Welfare, 1938-1948. Nashville,
Vanderbilt University Press, 1967.
Reed, Linda. Simple Decency & Common Sense:
The Southern Conference Movement, 1938-1963. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1991.
You can find more materials on the fascinating Mississippi
“Freedom Summer” of 1964 here:
Freedom On My Mind. Videorecording. Berkeley,
C.A.: Clarity Educational Productions; San Francisco,
CA: California Newsreel, 1994.
McAdam, Doug. Freedom Summer. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1988.
Randall, Herbert. Faces of Freedom Summer.
Randall’s photographs supplemented by text by
Bobs M. Tusa. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press,
2001.
