Civil Rights & Jim Crow

Published in 1995, The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis is a realistic middle grade novel told from the point of view of 10-year-old Kenneth Watson. The Watson family lives in Flint, Michigan, in 1963. The early chapters of the book detail Kenny’s family life, school days, classmates, and older brother Byron’s exploits. When Byron takes one of his “adventures” too far, Kenny’s parents decide a family road trip to Birmingham, Alabama, is... Read The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963 Summary

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Through My Eyes is the autobiography of Ruby Bridges. In 1960, Bridges became the first African American child to integrate an elementary school in New Orleans, Louisiana following a court mandate for the state to desegregate its public school system. Louisiana trailed segregation effort in neighboring states, such as the nine Black high school students known as the “Little Rock Nine” who integrated a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957.Bridges’s autobiography, published in... Read Through My Eyes Summary

“To His Excellency General Washington'' was written in 1775 by Phillis Wheatley. The poem addresses George Washington following the commencement of the American Revolutionary War that year. At the time, Wheatley was writing in popular convention with a Victorian form praising poetry’s inherited forms. A striking dimension of the poem is its fealty to a slave owner, George Washington, by a woman who was still a slave at her time of writing and would remain... Read To His Excellency General Washington Summary

Published in 1962, Travels With Charley: In Search of America is a narrative travelogue by John Steinbeck. The book follows a cross-country road trip the author took with his dog, a brown poodle named Charley. They travel in a camper-style pickup truck named Rosinante, which Steinbeck had custom built for the trip. Steinbeck embarked on the journey because he felt disconnected from the larger picture of American life after years of living in New York... Read Travels With Charley Summary

Two Trains Running by August Wilson first opened in 1990 at the Yale Repertory Theatre with Samuel L. Jackson as Wolf and Laurence Fishburne playing Sterling. The play premiered on Broadway in 1992, receiving four Tony nominations in 1992 including Best Play. Two Trains Running is a part of Wilson’s Century Cycle, also known as the Pittsburgh Cycle, which consists of 10 plays: one for each decade of the 20th century, each depicting the changing... Read Two Trains Running Summary

John Lewis’s 1998 memoir, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement, written with Mike D’Orso, is an intimate firsthand account of the US Civil Rights Movement (CRM). Lewis, the child of sharecroppers, grew up in Pike County, Alabama, during the heyday of segregation in the American South. From a young age, Lewis questioned the injustices of segregation, yet never imagined that he would become one of the key leaders of the civil rights... Read Walking with the Wind Summary

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Carolyn Maull McKinstry's memoir While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement (2011) describes the author’s experiences growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, during the 1950s and 1960s. At 14 years old, McKinstry survived the racially motivated bombing of Sixteen Street Baptist Church. Four of McKinstry’s friends were killed in the explosion, and the trauma of the experience haunted her into adulthood. McKinstry later embraced a peaceful approach... Read While the World Watched Summary

Why We Can’t Wait is Martin Luther King, Jr.’s history of the Birmingham protests that took place in 1963 and his effort to explain the aims and goals of the Civil Rights Movement to a national audience. King explores the background of the protests in Birmingham, the importance of nonviolence as the primary approach to protest, how this approach played out in Birmingham, and the aftermath of the protests in an introduction and eight chapters... Read Why We Can't Wait Summary

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