Guides: Alumni Travel Reading Lists 2024: Alabama Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights leaders

The Sword and the Shield by Peniel E. Joseph
Call Number: Van Pelt Library E185.97.K5 J67 2020 -
ISBN: 9781541617865
Publication Date: 2020
This dual biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King provides a more complete understanding of the different paths these two important African American leaders followed to achieve similar goals.
His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope by Jon Meacham; Afterword by John Lewis
Call Number: Van Pelt Library E840.8.L43 M43 2020
ISBN: 9781984855022
Publication Date: 2020
A biography of U.S. congressman John Lewis and his quest for justice in America from the 1950s to the present.
Dividing Lines: Municipal Politics and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma by J. Mills Thornton and J. Mills Thornton
Call Number: Van Pelt Library E185.93.A3 T48 2002
ISBN: 9780817352998
Publication Date: 2006
Thornton and Thornton write, "It is the intention of the following pages to illuminate the essential connection between the intensely local concerns of municipal politics and the vast national and international changes in race relations they wrought during the 1950s and 1960" (from the Introduction). In this history and analysis of the Civil Rights Movement, Thornton and Thornton ask, "Why were there sustained demonstrations in Birmingham rather than in Mobile, in Montgomery rather than in Columbus or Meridian, in Selma rather than in Valdosta, Bainbridge, or Dothan?" Why did the movement manifest itself so strongly in these particular locations and at this particular time?
When the Children Marched: The Birmingham Civil rRghts Movement by Robert H. Mayer
Call Number: Kislak Center for Special Collections - Joanna Banks Collection F334.B69 N4485 2008
ISBN: 9780766029309
Publication Date: 2008
This book focuses on the African-American youth who marched, sang, and spoke out against segregation and steadfastly responded to attacks from trained police dogs and fire hoses with non-violent resistance. Author Mayer explores the civil rights leaders who organized the movement and the children and teens at the heart of the fight.

Alabama Civil Rights Movement

This guide is designed to provide readings to complement and enrich Penn Alumni's 2024 trip to Alabama to learn about and visit historic Civil Rights Movement sites. For more information about this and other excursions, visit Penn Alumni Travel. Co-sponsored by the Stuart Weitzman School of Design and the Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites

"Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail Sign," from Alabama Extension, Photograph is dedicated to the Public Domain under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Deed.

Recommendations contributed by Nick Okrent, Penn Libraries Humanities Coordinator and subject specialist for History

Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution by Diane McWhorter
Call Number: Van Pelt Library F334.B69 N449 2001
ISBN: 9781476709512
Publication Date: 2013
Diane McWhorter, daughter of a prominent white Birmingham family, uses police and FBI records, archival documents, interviews with black activists and Klansmen, and her own personal memories to present an extensive history of the Civil Rights Movement, its leaders and participants, and those fighting to stop them. In addition to the historic events, McWhorter also looks to her own family to uncover how closely her parents were aligned to the opposition forces.
The Unlikely World of the Montgomery Bus Boycott: Solidarity across Alabama, the United Kingdom, and South Africa by Cole S. Manley
Call Number: Van Pelt Library E185.61 .M293 2021
ISBN: 9781588384522
Publication Date: 2021
The author analyzes the global influences and impact of the boycott of 1955-1956.

Birmingham

Letter from Birmingham City Jail

In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested and placed in jail for leading a demonstration despite an injunction against the action. This was after eight white clergymen in Alabama released a public statement criticizing the civil rights protests led by Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. During his stay in prison, Dr. King composed "Letter from Birmingham City Jail," partially written on the margins of a newspaper and scraps of paper, as a response to these criticisms and to articulate his vision of the civil rights movement, defending the use of nonviolent civil disobedience and explaining why direct action was necessary. In addition, he rebutted claims that the movement should be more patient, arguing that waiting for justice and equal rights was no longer an option for the African American community

Princeton Readings in Political Thought by Mitchell Cohen, editor
Call Number: JA81 .P928 2018
ISBN: 9780691159973
Publication Date: 2018
A broad anthology of political and philosophical works, which includes Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Princeton University Press
Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement that Changed America by Frye Gaillard
Call Number: Van Pelt Library E185.93.A3 G35 2004
ISBN: 9780817352981
Publication Date: 2006
Cradle of Freedom follows the chronology of events occurring in Alabama: the Montgomery bus boycott, the Freedom Rides, the Letter from the Birmingham Jail, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, Bloody Sunday, and the Black Power movement in the Black Belt. Gaillard provides stories of ordinary people who worked side by side with the civil rights icons.