Free at Last?: The Civil Rights Movement and the People Who Made It

by Fred Powledge

"A welcome addition to civil rights history.…It is an old story, newly told here, with new insights and new characters, tied together with a new point of view."
-- Julian Bond

"What makes Fred Powledge's new book especially valuable as an account of the Southern Civil Rights movement is its firsthand recollections of people who took part in or witnessed the movement. Woven in with the author's narrative, more than 60 reminiscences lend the book a richness and breadth that lift it above most other accounts of the struggle."
-- San Francisco Chronicle

"This clear, brisk history of the civil-rights movement is a valuable aid to the memories of the middle-aged and an excellent summary for those too young to remember it."
-- The New Yorker

711 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Christopher Sutch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a terrific (and much needed ) oral history of the civil rights movement. The amount of information Powledge collected and the incredible amount of contextualization, editing, and arranging of his subjects' stories is marvelous. I learned quite a bit that I didn't already know from this book, and the things I did know were clarified and contextualized in helpful ways. Especially interesting was the theme, appearing late in the book, of the beginnings and eventual result of the feud between the SCLC and SNCC, and how much some people really didn't like what MLK was doing during the 1960s. Also insightful was the general hypocrisy and opportunism shown by the Kennedy brothers and by LBJ when it came to issues of voter reform and civil rights. A very interesting read.

[Marcela]

Um, totally Not boring. When you are reading history and the author includes many first hand accounts of the time period, in this case, people who lived through and were a part of the Civil Rights movement....that's good writing.