Civil Rights (Eyewitness to History) - Hardcover

Eyewitness History is an interdisciplinary and multicultural series that reveals how significant events were seen and interpreted by people from all levels of society. Excerpts from primary sources -- memoirs, diaries, letters, newspapers, speeches, advertisements, and more -- provide a wide range of viewpoints and enhance a compelling narrative, prompting students to develop the critical-thinking skills that allow them to construct their own opinions about the people and their times.A Complete PerspectiveEach volume is a comprehensive and self-contained reference work that features: -- Hundreds of eyewitness accounts that bring history to life-- Essays starting each chapter, that provide historical context and that highlight major events and attitudes of the period-- Chronologies that provide a detailed historical perspective-- Contemporary illustrations and photographs-- Excerpts from relevant documents of the day-- Brief biographies of key individuals, personalizing historic eventsSome volumes also contain maps and graphs that provide visual context, helping students gain a richer understanding of historical events.A Rich Mosaic of Eyewitness Accounts from Past ErasExcellent for students and general readers, the Eyewitness History series deepens readers' understanding.From the origins of the struggle after the Civil War to its present-day legacy, The Civil Rights Movement covers the full course of this essentially American phenomenon, collecting the words and thoughts of those who lived through the desegregation of schools, the bus boycotts, the sit-ins, the freedom rides, and the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The civil rights movement that spanned the years following the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 through the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 marked a watershed period for human rights in America. Julian Bond, former communications director of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), notes in his introduction that "the words 'civil rights' summon up memories and images in modern minds of grainy television footage of packed mass meetings, firehoses and police dogs, of early-1960s peaceful protestors replaced over time by violent rioters, of soul-stirring oratory and bold actions, of assassination and death." The civil rights movement was also a movement of courage, of perseverance, of strength and of triumph. Its eyewitnesses and its many participants saw the Montgomery Bus Boycott, school integration, the freedom rides, the march on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Movement covers the key years 1954-1965 in detail. It also traces the roots of the civil rights movement to the 19th century in the years following the Emancipation Proclamation through the Reconstruction period, with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the denial of basic rights to blacks. The Civil Rights Movement, the latest volume in Facts On File's acclaimed Eyewitness History series, provides hundreds of firsthand accounts of the movement - from letters, speeches, newspaper editorials and press statements, which illustrate how historical events appeared to those who lived through them. Among the eyewitness testimonies included are those from Martin Luther King Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Malcolm X, President Lyndon Johnson, Stokely Carmichael, Rosa Parks and Ralph Abernathy. In addition to the firsthand accounts, each chapter provides an introductory essay and a chronology of events. The book also includes such critical documents as the Formation of the NAACP, the Brown v. Board of Education decision, The Southern Manifesto, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and The Civil Rights Act of 1991 as well as capsule biographies of more than 100 key figures, a bibliography, an index and 80 black-and-white photographs.