Black History Month

In 2012, a seventeen-year-old African American boy named Trayvon Martin was murdered in cold blood by a neighborhood vigilante. When the murderer was acquitted, shockwaves ran through African American communities across the United States. The frustration over the perceived lack of value of African Americans in the United States spurred #BlackLivesMatter. The activist group mobilized as a rash of killings of unarmed African Americans by police seemed to plague the country. But many whites didn't understand their cause and responded with All Lives Matter. The viewpoints in this resource ask important questions regarding race in the United States.

After the triumphs of Montgomery and Selma, Martin Luther King, Jr., rallied his forces and headed north. The law was on his side, the nation seemed to be behind him, the crusade for civil rights was rapidly gathering momentum--and then, in Chicago, heartland of America, the movement stalled. What happened? This book is the first to give us the full story--a vivid account of how the Chicago Freedom Movement of 1965-1967 attempted to combat northern segregation. Northern Protest captures this new kind of campaign for civil rights at a fateful turning point, with effects that pulse through the nation's race relations to the day. Combating the outright, unconstitutional denial of basic political and civil rights had been King's focus in the South. In the North, the racial terrian was different. James Ralph analyzes the shift in the planning stages--moving from addressing public constitutional rights to private--impact legal rights--as King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) mounted an unprecedented attack on housing discrimination, one of the most blatant social and economic inequities of urban America. A crisis in the making is unfolded as King, the SCLC, and a coalition of multiracial Chicago civil rights groups mobilize protests against the city's unfair housing practices. Ralph introduces us to Chicago's white ethnics, city officials, and business and religious leaders in a heated confusion of responses. His vibrant account--based in part on many in-depth interviews with participants--reveals the true lineaments of urban America, with lessons reaching beyond the confines of the city. The Chicago Freedom Movement is given a national context--as King envisioned it, and as it finally played out. Here, the Chicago crusade becomes emblematic of the civil rights movement today and tomorrow. Ralph argues that this new push for equality in more private realms of American life actually undermined popular support for the movement and led to its ultimate decline.

Critically acclaimed author Lawrence Goldstone offers an affecting portrait of the road to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, which significantly shaped the United States and effectively ended segregation. Since 1896, in the landmark outcome of Plessy v. Ferguson, the doctrine of "separate but equal" had been considered acceptable under the United States Constitution. African American and white populations were thus segregated, attending different schools, living in different neighborhoods, and even drinking from different water fountains. However, as African Americans found themselves lacking opportunity and living under the constant menace of mob violence, it was becoming increasingly apparent that segregation was not only unjust, but dangerous. Fighting to turn the tide against racial oppression, revolutionaries rose up all over America, from Booker T. Washington to W. E. B. Du Bois. They formed coalitions of some of the greatest legal minds and activists, who carefully strategized how to combat the racist judicial system. These efforts would be rewarded in the groundbreaking cases of 1952-1954 known collectively as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, in which the US Supreme Court would decide, once and for all, the legality of segregation -- and on which side of history the United States would stand. In this thrilling examination of the path to Brown v. Board of Education, Constitutional law scholar Lawrence Goldstone highlights the key trials and players in the fight for integration. Written with a deft hand, this story of social justice will remind readers, young and old, of the momentousness of the segregation hearings.