This list will help you get ready for Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 21 and Black History Month in February. Simply use it to quickly pull together displays, featured reads or anything else you need!
Civil rights have been in the news with the rise of Black Lives Matter, Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem at NFL games, and more. Yet civil rights activists have many other causes they are fighting for, such as calling attention to police brutality and combating racism in everyday life.
The Civil Rights Movement started in the 1800s and remains a prominent movement within our modern society. Find out how activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Fannie Lou Hamer set the stage for activists in modern times and learn how activists are speaking out today to expand rights for African Americans.
John Lewis is known as one of the most courageous leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Inspired as a boy by the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Lewis would go on to spend more than fifty years fighting for equal rights. Lewis used nonviolent protest methods, participated in sit-ins, helped organize the March on Washington, and led a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. In 1986 Lewis won a seat in US Congress, and has held the position ever since. Walk with Lewis from a tenant farm in Alabama, across the segregated southern United States, and into Washington, DC, where he continues to work for equality for all Americans.
Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial: A Stone of Hope
History recognizes the leadership and voice Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. brought to the civil rights movement in 1960s America. A 30-foot tall statue of Dr. King gazes into the future full of hope for all humanity. His words of peace are carved in the walls of the monument as a reminder to all Americans of the power of peaceful protest. Learn all about the first national memorial to an African American.
Lindy and her doll Sally are best friends – wherever Lindy goes, Sally stays right by her side. They eat together, sleep together, and even pick cotton together. So, on the night Lindy and her mama run away in search of freedom, Sally goes too. This young girl’s rag doll vividly narrates her enslaved family’s courageous escape through the Underground Railroad. At once heart-wrenching and uplifting, this story about friendship and the strength of the human spirit will touch the lives of all readers long after the journey has ended.
Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal
Sitting tall in the saddle, with a wide-brimmed black hat and twin Colt pistols on his belt, Bass Reeves seemed bigger than life. Outlaws feared him. Law-abiding citizens respected him. As a peace officer, he was cunning and fearless. When a lawbreaker heard Bass Reeves had his warrant, he knew it was the end of the trail, because Bass always got his man, dead or alive. He achieved all this in spite of whites who didn’t like the notion of a black lawman. Born into slavery in 1838, Bass had a hard and violent life, but he also had a strong sense of right and wrong that others admired. When Judge Isaac Parker tried to bring law and order to the lawless Indian Territories, he chose Bass to be a Deputy US Marshal. Bass would quickly prove a smart choice. For three decades, Bass was the most feared and respected lawman in the territories. He made more than 3,000 arrests, and though he was a crack shot and a quick draw, he only killed fourteen men in the line of duty. The story of Bass Reeves is the story of a remarkable African American and a remarkable hero of the Old West.
The Book Itch: Freedom, Truth & Harlem’s Greatest Bookstore
In the 1930s, Lewis’s dad, Lewis Michaux Sr., had an itch he needed to scratch—a book itch. How to scratch it? He started a bookstore in Harlem and named it the National Memorial African Bookstore.
And as far as Lewis Michaux Jr. could tell, his father’s bookstore was one of a kind. People from all over came to visit the store, even famous people—Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X, and Langston Hughes, to name a few. In his father’s bookstore people bought and read books, and they also learned from each other. People swapped and traded ideas and talked about how things could change. They came together here all because of his father’s book itch. Read the story of how Lewis Michaux Sr. and his bookstore fostered new ideas and helped people stand up for what they believed in.
Game Changer: John McLendon and the Secret Game
When they piled into cars and drove through Durham, North Carolina, the members of the Duke University Medical School basketball team only knew that they were going somewhere to play basketball. They didn’t know whom they would play against. But when they came face to face with their opponents, they quickly realized this secret game was going to make history.
Discover the true story of how in 1944, Coach John McLendon orchestrated a secret game between the best players from a white college and his team from the North Carolina College of Negroes. At a time of widespread segregation and rampant racism, this illegal gathering changed the sport of basketball forever.
Like a Bird: The Art of the American Slave Song
Enslaved African Americans longed for freedom, and that longing took many forms—including music. Drawing on biblical imagery, slave songs both expressed the sorrow of life in bondage and offered a rallying cry for the spirit.
Like a Bird brings together text, music, and illustrations by Coretta Scott King Award-winning illustrator Michele Wood to convey the rich meaning behind thirteen of these powerful songs.
No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller
“You can’t walk straight on a crooked line. You do you’ll break your leg. How can you walk straight in a crooked system?”
Lewis Michaux was born to do things his own way. When a white banker told him to sell fried chicken, not books, because “Negroes don’t read,” Lewis took five books and one hundred dollars and built a bookstore. It soon became the intellectual center of Harlem, a refuge for everyone from Muhammad Ali to Malcolm X.
In No Crystal Stair, Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Vaunda Micheaux Nelson combines meticulous research with a storyteller’s flair to document the life and times of her great-uncle Lewis Michaux, an extraordinary literacy pioneer of the Civil Rights era.
“My life was no crystal stair, far from it. But I’m taking my leave with some pride. It tickles me to know that those folks who said I could never sell books to black people are eating crow. I’d say my seeds grew pretty damn well. And not just the book business. It’s the more important business of moving our people forward that has real meaning.”
Ruth was so excited to take a trip in her family’s new car! In the early 1950s, few African Americans could afford to buy cars, so this would be an adventure. But she soon found out that black travelers weren’t treated very well in some towns. Many hotels and gas stations refused service to black people. Daddy was upset about something called Jim Crow laws . . .
Finally, a friendly attendant at a gas station showed Ruth’s family The Green Book. It listed all of the places that would welcome black travelers. With this guidebook—and the kindness of strangers—Ruth could finally make a safe journey from Chicago to her grandma’s house in Alabama.
Ruth’s story is fiction, but The Green Book and its role in helping a generation of African American travelers avoid some of the indignities of Jim Crow are historical fact.
A Spy Called James: The True Story of James Lafayette, Revolutionary War Double Agent
Told for the first time in picture book form is the true story of James Lafayette—a slave who spied for George Washington’s army during the American Revolution. But while America celebrated its newfound freedom, James returned to slavery. His service hadn’t qualified him for the release he’d been hoping for. For James the fight wasn’t over; he’d already helped his country gain its freedom, now it was time to win his own.
Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday and the Power of a Protest Song
The audience was completely silent the first time Billie Holiday performed a song called “Strange Fruit.” In the 1930s, Billie was known as a performer of jazz and blues music, but this song wasn’t either of those things. It was a song about injustice, and it would change her life forever.
Discover how two outsiders—Billie Holiday, a young black woman raised in poverty, and Abel Meeropol, the son of Jewish immigrants—combined their talents to create a song that challenged racism and paved the way for the Civil Rights movement.
Locked Up for Freedom: Civil Rights Protesters at the Leesburg Stockade
In 1963, more than 30 African-American girls ages 11 to 16 were arrested for taking part in Civil Rights protests in Americus, Georgia. They were taken without their families’ knowledge to a Civil War-era stockade in Leesburg, Georgia, where they were confined in unsanitary conditions and exposed to brutal treatment. Over the following weeks, their commitment to the fight for equality was put to the test. Combining historical research and personal interviews with several of the girls, Heather E. Schwartz brings this true story of the Civil Rights Movement to life.
—
Still getting ready for December? Check out last month’s post!
Heather E Schwartz
Hi, Lara! This is great! Could I possibly convince you to put my Lerner book on your list? “Locked Up for Freedom” is about a group of Civil Rights Movement activists ages 11-16, who were jailed and remained committed to their cause during the 1960s. I think it’s a good fit! 🙂
Lara Neel
It is a great fit! I’m sorry that I missed that one!