A Life in the Struggle

By George Lipsitz,

Book cover of A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition

Book description

This book tells the story of Ivory Perry, a black worker and community activist who, for more than thirty years, has distributed the leaflets, carried the picket signs, and planned and participated in the confrontations that were essential to the success of protest movements. Using oral histories and extensive archival…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked A Life in the Struggle as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

All my selections capture unheralded activists undertaking the “social learning” at the core of movement building. Inevitably, a movement against one injustice will uncover larger and denser fabrics of inequality and disempowerment. Lipsitz and Perry collaborated in producing an incredible synthesis of personal biography and broad social and historical analysis. This book opened my eyes to the forgotten history of a northern freedom movement that challenged entrenched and enduring structures of big city inequality. Lipsitz follows Perry from a campaign to open up jobs for St. Louis bank tellers in 1963, to an “unviolent” campaign organizing Louisiana timber workers for…

Want books like A Life in the Struggle?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like A Life in the Struggle.

Browse books like A Life in the Struggle

Book cover of The Hamlet Fire: A Tragic Story of Cheap Food, Cheap Government, and Cheap Lives
Book cover of Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty
Book cover of Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama's Black Belt

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,189

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Missouri, civil rights, and the Civil Rights Movement?

Missouri 41 books
Civil Rights 113 books