For many reasons, the Civil Rights Movement of the ’50’s and ’60’s and before and after is my favorite period in American History to study. Really, I think it is the most pivotal and altering point of change since the Revolution. Many people think and talk about his most well-known speech, but there are so many memorable and inspirational points in his life that it’s hard to choose just one, let alone just that one. For years I’ve wanted to take a vacation and complete the tour of Civil Rights landmarks and I hope to do it before I’m thirty because many of these sites are in physical decline.
If you are interested in learning more, I’ve read a plethora of books on the topic and recommend the following (just a few):
- The Autobiography of Medgar Evers: A Hero’s Life and Legacy Revealed Through His Writings, Letters, and Speeches by Medgar Wiley Evers
- Martin Luther King Jr.: A Life by Marshall Frady
- A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
- The Black Experience in Contemporary America by Daniel Boamah-Wiafe
- Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody
- Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary by Juan Williams
