Author Description

The Civil Rights Chronicle recounts the details and drama of the American civil rights movement, the decades-long struggle for equality for all people. This comprehensive, 448-page book primarily focuses on the years 1954 through 1968, while also documenting the radical shift in the movement after the 1960s as well as significant civil rights issues up to the present day. Written by noted scholars, the chronicle offers: A foreword by Myrlie Evers-Williams, wife of former NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers, who was assassinated in 1963. A 1,200-item timeline that marks significant points along the battle for civil rights, from the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education decision to the assassination of movement leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Essays describing 26 watershed events, such as the Montgomery bus boycott, crisis at Little Rock High School, sit-ins, and freedom rides. Decade-overview essays that give readers a big picture perspective, including the impact of the Depression on African Americans in the 1930s to the rolling back of affirmative action in the 1980s. More than 80 sidebars on such subjects as Thurgood Marshall, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, letter from a Birmingham jail, and the black power salute at the 1968 Olympics. More than 20 first-hand accounts from those directly involved in the civil rights struggle, including Rosa Parks and Little Rock student Elizabeth Eckford. More than 900 photographs that visually tell the story of the African American struggle for civil rights, such as images of the Birmingham church bombings and the March on Washington.