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Reporting Civil Rights: The Library of America Edition:
This landmark two-volume anthology chronicles more than thirty tumultuous years in the African American struggle for freedom and equal rights. Here, in brilliant and inspiring dispatches from some of the finest reporters in the history of American journalism, is a panoramic portrait of the fight to overthrow segregation in the United States. Nearly 200 newspaper and magazine reports, book excerpts, and features by 151 writers—David Halberstam, Carl Rowan, Robert Penn Warren, Gordon Parks, Ralph Ellison, and Anne Moody among them—provide vivid firsthand accounts of all the revolutionary the rising activism of the 1940s; the Brown decision; the Montgomery bus boycott; Little Rock; the sit-in movement and Freedom Rides; Birmingham, the March on Washington (August 28, 1963), Freedom Summer, and Selma; and the emergence of “Black Power.”
Each volume contains a detailed chronology of the civil rights movement, biographical profiles of the journalists, notes, an index, and thirty-two pages of photographs, many never before published.
“If only civil rights were taught this way in our classrooms! . . . Reporting Civil Rights [is] a vital national resource” — The Oprah Magazine
LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
Each volume contains a detailed chronology of the civil rights movement, biographical profiles of the journalists, notes, an index, and thirty-two pages of photographs, many never before published.
“If only civil rights were taught this way in our classrooms! . . . Reporting Civil Rights [is] a vital national resource” — The Oprah Magazine
LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
1982 pages, Hardcover
First published June 27, 2013
2 people are currently reading
28 people want to read
About the author
Clayborne Carson
95 books50 followersClayborne Carson is professor of history at Stanford University, and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. Since 1985 he has directed the Martin Luther King Papers Project, a long-term project to edit and publish the papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.
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February 9, 2023
Revisiting The Civil Rights Movement With The Library Of America
The Library of America published two separate volumes titled "Reporting Civil Rights" in 2003 to commemorate what was then the 40th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. Ten years later, in 2013, the Library of America has republished the books as a two-volume box set in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the historic March. The books offer first-hand source material taken from American journalism of the Civil Rights movement. The first volume covers the years 1941 -- 1963 while the second volume covers the history from 1963 -- 1973. The August 28, 1963 March is the centerpiece of the study as it begins the second volume. I read and reviewed the two individual volumes when first published in 2003, and I took the opportunity to revisit the books when published together as a box set.
The set consists of 2000 pages and covers over thirty years of the African American Civil Rights movement. It includes about 200 separate entries and eyewitness accounts to the events it describes by 150 different authors. Besides presenting the written word, each volume includes a separate set of 32 photographs, many of them published for the first time. The books include a detailed chronology of the years covered together with biographical notes on each writer represented in the collection.
The first volume begins in 1941 with A. Phillip Randolph's plan for a March on Washington. Randolph called off the march when President Roosevelt issued an Executive Order providing for nondiscrimination in Federal contracts. Randolph later became the Director of the 1963 March. The volume proceeds through the civil rights struggles of WW II, including early sit-ins and Jackie Robinson's integration of major league baseball. It covers the 1954 Brown decision, the murder of Emmett Till, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the sit-ins and Freedom Riders, the admission of James Meredith to the University of Mississippi, the Birmingham demonstrations of 1963, the assassination of Medgar Evars, and much more. The volume concludes with an article about violent resistance to civil rights demonstrators in Cambridge, Maryland in 1963.
The second volume begins immediately with several contemporaneous accounts of the March on Washington. Topics covered include the murder of three young civil rights workers in June 1964 near Philadelphia, Mississippi, voting rights drives, the "Freedom Summer", the rise of Malcolm X and the splits in the Civil Rights movement, the galvanizing Selma to Montgomery Alabama voting rights march of March 1965, the riots in Los Angeles and Detroit, the assassinations of Malcolm X and Dr. King, the rise of the Black Panthers and Black Nationalism, and much more. The set concludes with an eloquent 1973 essay by Alice Walker, "Staying Home in Mississippi", in which Walker recalls her participation in the March on Washington ten years earlier and explains her decision to continue to live in the South.
In revisiting the books, I focused on a series of issues centered loosely on the 1963 March, beginning with the call for the initially planned March on Washington in 1941. I read about Emmett Till, particularly William Bradford Huie's article, "Emmett Till's Killers Tell their Story." (The 1963 March took place on the day of Till's murder on August 28,1955.) I then moved to the articles documenting the 1963 Birmingham Boycott, with the brutality of Bull Connor and Dr. King's famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail" included in full in the book. I read an excellent 1961 essay "A Negro Tourist in Dixie" by Bettye Rice Hughes which describes a young black woman's solo bus ride through the South after separate accomodations in bus stations were declared illegal.
Then, I revisited the several documentary accounts of the March on Washington and followed them with an article by Joyn Herbers on the jailing of Dr. King while leading a demonstration in St. Augustine, Florida in May 1964. After reading about the Cheney-Goodman-Schwerner murders in Mississippi in June, 1964, I moved to Michal Durham's article, "Ollie McClung's Big Decision" which describes the actions which led to the testing of the public accomodations provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. I then read the many articles in the book on the Selma-Montgomery March, which include Elizabeth Hardwick's, "A Hole so Deep" and Renata Adler's "Letter from Selma". The concluding essay by Alice Walker, ten years after the March, was a fitting way to conclude my revisiting of the set.
The events documented in these volumes were momentous in importance and impact. This set provides a priceless documentary record of the civil rights struggle for those readers who lived in these tumultuous times and for younger and for future readers. The impact of the movement continues. I learned a great deal when I first read these books in 2003 and learned still more when I revisited the set as my own way to commemorate and think about the March on Washington.
Robin Friedman
The Library of America published two separate volumes titled "Reporting Civil Rights" in 2003 to commemorate what was then the 40th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. Ten years later, in 2013, the Library of America has republished the books as a two-volume box set in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the historic March. The books offer first-hand source material taken from American journalism of the Civil Rights movement. The first volume covers the years 1941 -- 1963 while the second volume covers the history from 1963 -- 1973. The August 28, 1963 March is the centerpiece of the study as it begins the second volume. I read and reviewed the two individual volumes when first published in 2003, and I took the opportunity to revisit the books when published together as a box set.
The set consists of 2000 pages and covers over thirty years of the African American Civil Rights movement. It includes about 200 separate entries and eyewitness accounts to the events it describes by 150 different authors. Besides presenting the written word, each volume includes a separate set of 32 photographs, many of them published for the first time. The books include a detailed chronology of the years covered together with biographical notes on each writer represented in the collection.
The first volume begins in 1941 with A. Phillip Randolph's plan for a March on Washington. Randolph called off the march when President Roosevelt issued an Executive Order providing for nondiscrimination in Federal contracts. Randolph later became the Director of the 1963 March. The volume proceeds through the civil rights struggles of WW II, including early sit-ins and Jackie Robinson's integration of major league baseball. It covers the 1954 Brown decision, the murder of Emmett Till, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the sit-ins and Freedom Riders, the admission of James Meredith to the University of Mississippi, the Birmingham demonstrations of 1963, the assassination of Medgar Evars, and much more. The volume concludes with an article about violent resistance to civil rights demonstrators in Cambridge, Maryland in 1963.
The second volume begins immediately with several contemporaneous accounts of the March on Washington. Topics covered include the murder of three young civil rights workers in June 1964 near Philadelphia, Mississippi, voting rights drives, the "Freedom Summer", the rise of Malcolm X and the splits in the Civil Rights movement, the galvanizing Selma to Montgomery Alabama voting rights march of March 1965, the riots in Los Angeles and Detroit, the assassinations of Malcolm X and Dr. King, the rise of the Black Panthers and Black Nationalism, and much more. The set concludes with an eloquent 1973 essay by Alice Walker, "Staying Home in Mississippi", in which Walker recalls her participation in the March on Washington ten years earlier and explains her decision to continue to live in the South.
In revisiting the books, I focused on a series of issues centered loosely on the 1963 March, beginning with the call for the initially planned March on Washington in 1941. I read about Emmett Till, particularly William Bradford Huie's article, "Emmett Till's Killers Tell their Story." (The 1963 March took place on the day of Till's murder on August 28,1955.) I then moved to the articles documenting the 1963 Birmingham Boycott, with the brutality of Bull Connor and Dr. King's famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail" included in full in the book. I read an excellent 1961 essay "A Negro Tourist in Dixie" by Bettye Rice Hughes which describes a young black woman's solo bus ride through the South after separate accomodations in bus stations were declared illegal.
Then, I revisited the several documentary accounts of the March on Washington and followed them with an article by Joyn Herbers on the jailing of Dr. King while leading a demonstration in St. Augustine, Florida in May 1964. After reading about the Cheney-Goodman-Schwerner murders in Mississippi in June, 1964, I moved to Michal Durham's article, "Ollie McClung's Big Decision" which describes the actions which led to the testing of the public accomodations provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. I then read the many articles in the book on the Selma-Montgomery March, which include Elizabeth Hardwick's, "A Hole so Deep" and Renata Adler's "Letter from Selma". The concluding essay by Alice Walker, ten years after the March, was a fitting way to conclude my revisiting of the set.
The events documented in these volumes were momentous in importance and impact. This set provides a priceless documentary record of the civil rights struggle for those readers who lived in these tumultuous times and for younger and for future readers. The impact of the movement continues. I learned a great deal when I first read these books in 2003 and learned still more when I revisited the set as my own way to commemorate and think about the March on Washington.
Robin Friedman
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