Civil Rights & Jim Crow

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Angela Davis: An Autobiography, originally published in 1974, is a political autobiography focused on the imprisonment and trial of activist and scholar Angela Davis in the early 1970s. In 1970, after guns belonging to Davis were used in an uprising at the Marin County Courthouse in California, Davis was accused and convicted of conspiracy, kidnapping, and murder. A jury acquitted Davis of all charges in 1972. She published her autobiography two years later to center... Read Angela Davis Summary

Kevin Boyle's Arc of Justice depicts the racial turmoil in Detroit in 1925 through the story of Dr. Ossian Sweet, an African-American physician who faces murder charges after trying to defend his home in an all-white neighborhood from mob violence. The grandson of a slave, Ossian moves northward during the Great Migration to get his education at Wilberforce and Howard Universities. After graduating Howard's medical school, Ossian sets up practice and residence in Black Bottom... Read Arc of Justice Summary

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Originally written in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” (2018) is the transcribed posthumous autobiography of the life of Oluale “Cudjo Lewis” Kossola (1841-1935), written by Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960). Known for her involvement in the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston was a writer, anthropologist, folklorist, and filmmaker. In all her work, she held a special appreciation for Black life and Black culture of the US South. Her works... Read Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" Summary

The short story “Big Boy Leaves Home” (1936) is the first published work of Richard Wright (1908-1960), a celebrated African American author who is best known for his 1940 protest novel Native Son. Most of Wright’s poetry, fiction, and nonfiction deal with the experiences of working-class Black people (especially men) in the United States. His protagonists, like “Big Boy,” struggle against overt racism and racist violence in their communities, ultimately facing crises that force them... Read Big Boy Leaves Home Summary

Black Boy (American Hunger): A Record of Childhood and Youth is American writer Richard Wright’s classic memoir about coming of age as a Black man in the Jim Crow South and his migration to Chicago. Harper published Part 1 in 1945 as Black Boy and Part 2, which focuses on Wright’s experiences in the Communist Party in Chicago, in 1977 as American Hunger; Library of America published the combined memoir in 1991. The 1945 edition... Read Black Boy Summary

Blood Done Sign My Name (2004), by Timothy B. Tyson, is a nonfiction work of history centered on the racially motivated 1970 murder of Henry Marrow Jr. in Oxford, North Carolina. The killing occurred after Marrow, a 23-year-old Black Army veteran, husband, and father of two, allegedly made a flirtatious remark in the direction of a 19-year-old married white woman. The woman’s husband, brother-in-law, and father-in-law chased Marrow down the street, shot him from behind... Read Blood Done Sign My Name Summary

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Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement was written by Barbara Ransby and published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2003. The book is a biography of Ella Baker, the mother of the civil rights movement, whose work ushered in a new pro-democracy era that saw the importance of fighting for one’s civil rights as important to the survival of the democratic project. Ransby follows the winding tale of Baker’s life, chronicling her... Read Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement Summary

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Girls Like Us: Fighting For a World Where Girls Are Not For Sale, is a memoir by Rachel Lloyd that challenges how sexually exploited girls are treated and perceived in society. The book was originally published by Harper Perennial in February 2012 to positive reviews from various sources and figures such as Elle, Marie Claire, Demi Moore, Harlem Children’s Zone, and Tony Award-winning playwright and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Sarah Jones. Rachel Lloyd, a survivor of... Read Girls Like Us Summary