The most recommended Civil Rights Movement books

Who picked these books? Meet our 122 experts.

122 authors created a book list connected to the Civil Rights Movement, and here are their favorite Civil Rights Movement books.
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Book cover of Threads of Peace: How Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Changed the World

Tina Athaide Author Of Orange for the Sunsets

From my list on historical events unfolding.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child, I loved escaping into my character’s world—solving mysteries with Nancy Drew, getting into trouble like Anne from Anne of Green Gables, and diving into adventures with Enid Blyton’s Famous Five. But I never saw anyone like myself in those books. A girl with black hair and coffee-colored skin, who licked the last samosa crumb off her fingers. That's one of the reasons I write and read historical fiction. It allows you to take a ride with a person from that place and time, and the first rule of time travel is that you cannot change the past. But when you finish reading you may discover that the past has changed you. 

Tina's book list on historical events unfolding

Tina Athaide Why did Tina love this book?

I greatly admire Mohandas Gandhi and Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., so I was intrigued when I heard about this book that looked at the common threads between two amazing historical figures who shared a goal of social reform. Being South Asian, I am very familiar with Mohandas Gandhi, and after moving to the United States, I learned a lot about the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and this book revealed what led these two men down the path of peace. Even today, it saddens me that both Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. met their end to life by assassinations. I have only recently added this book to my classroom library, but anticipate it will be a popular choice among my students.

By Uma Krishnaswami,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Threads of Peace as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 9, 10, 11, and 12.

What is this book about?

"Inviting and original." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Mohandas Gandhi and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. both shook and changed the world in their quest for peace among all people, but what threads connected these great activists together in their shared goal of social revolution?

A lawyer and activist, tiny of stature with giant ideas, in British-ruled India at the beginning of the 20th century.

A minister from Georgia with a thunderous voice and hopes for peace at the height of the civil rights movement in America.

Born more than a half-century apart, with seemingly little in common except one shared…


Book cover of Marching Together: Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

Dorothy Sue Cobble Author Of For the Many: American Feminists and the Global Fight for Democratic Equality

From my list on how working women changed the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up in a blue-collar union family in the 1950s South I learned about the depth of racial and class injustice and the power of collective organizing. The many jobs I held in my twenties before fleeing to graduate school at Stanford University left me acutely aware of workplace sexism and disrespect. I became fascinated by how work shapes our sense of self and especially curious about the distinctive feminisms, labor movements, and politics of working-class women. These questions animate all my writing and teaching. Thirty years and seven books later, I believe reimagining work and labor movements is more necessary – and possible – than ever before.

Dorothy's book list on how working women changed the world

Dorothy Sue Cobble Why did Dorothy love this book?

I learned about the power of railroad unions and women’s labor auxiliaries from my parents and grandparents.

When I discovered Melinda Chateauvert’s gem of a book, I was thrilled. Chateauvert gives us the proud history of Black women’s railway auxiliaries and tells the dramatic story of how African-American women and men risked their lives and livelihoods to create the most powerful and influential Black-led union in the twentieth century.

The Sleeping Car Porters led the civil rights movement and the fight for a racially-integrated, egalitarian labor movement. There’s no better introduction to how notions of race and sex shaped twentieth-century working-class movements in America. 

By Melinda Chateauvert,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Marching Together as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) was the first national trade union for African Americans. Standard BSCP histories focus on the men who built the union. Yet the union's Ladies' Auxiliary played an essential role in shaping public debates over black manhood and unionization, setting political agendas for the black community, and crafting effective strategies to win racial and economic justice.

Melinda Chateauvert explores the history of the Ladies' Auxiliary and the wives, daughters, and sisters of Pullman porters who made up its membership and used the union to claim respectability and citizenship. As she shows, the Auxiliary actively…


Book cover of Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Carole Boston Weatherford Author Of Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer: The Spirit of the Civil Rights Movement

From my list on children’s books to fuel big dreams.

Why am I passionate about this?

Carole Boston Weatherford, author of Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, has over 60 books, including the Newbery Honor winner, BOX: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom, and three Caldecott Honor winners: Freedom in Congo Square, Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, and Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom. Recent titles include Beauty Mark: A Verse Novel of Marilyn Monroe, R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, The Queen of Soul, and The Roots of Rap: 16 Bars on the 4 Pillars of Hip Hop. A two-time NAACP Image Award winner, she teaches at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina.

Carole's book list on children’s books to fuel big dreams

Carole Boston Weatherford Why did Carole love this book?

The Reverend Martin Luther King is best known for his rousing “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington. This biography shows how his religious upbringing in the segregated South honed the faith and fortitude to lead the Civil Rights Movement.

By Doreen Rappaport, Bryan Collier (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Martin's Big Words as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?


This picture book biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. brings his life and the profound nature of his message to young children through his own words.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was one of the most influential and gifted speakers of all time. Doreen Rappaport uses quotes from some of his most beloved speeches to tell the story of his life and his work in a simple, direct way. Bryan Collier's stunning collage art combines remarkable watercolor paintings with vibrant patterns and textures. A timeline and a lsit of additional books and web sites help make this a standout biography…


Book cover of A History of America in Ten Strikes

Hamilton Nolan Author Of The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor

From my list on the power of the American labor movement.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a labor journalist. I've spent the past 20 years writing widely about inequality, class war, unions, and the way that power works in America. My parents were civil rights and antiwar activists in the 1960s and 70s, and they instilled in me an appreciation for the fact that social movements are often the only thing standing between regular people and exploitation. My curiosity about power imbalances in America drew me inexorably towards the absence of worker power and led me to the conclusion that the labor movement is the tool that can solve America's most profound problems. I grew up in Florida, live in Brooklyn, and report all over.

Hamilton's book list on the power of the American labor movement

Hamilton Nolan Why did Hamilton love this book?

The most gaping hole in most people’s knowledge of American history is labor history. Everyone knows the wars and the civil rights movement, but few people know the bloody, grinding struggles that went into giving us all the eight-hour workday and basic protections on the job.

Erik Loomis’s book builds a coherent vision of how major strikes have shaped this nation every bit as much as better-known movements have. This is one book that will open your eyes to the battles that went into many things we all take for granted.

By Erik Loomis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A History of America in Ten Strikes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Powerful and accessible, A History of America in Ten Strikes challenges all of our contemporary assumptions around labour, unions, and American workers.


Book cover of Nobody Knows My Name

Helen Epstein Author Of The Long Half-Lives of Love and Trauma

From my list on trauma and recovery.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a longtime American journalist and former New York University Professor of Journalism who has written 10 books of non-fiction, several addressing issues of trauma. I was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia to two survivors of the Holocaust and was a baby immigrant to the U.S. after the Communist take-over of 1948. Although I have written a lot about the arts (music, books, and theater), I have also had a long-term interest in the psychological effects of psychic trauma in survivors of racism, antisemitism, sexism, genocide, war, illness, and natural disaster. My upcoming book is The Year of Getting Through It about being diagnosed with and undergoing treatment for endometrial cancer during COVID.

Helen's book list on trauma and recovery

Helen Epstein Why did Helen love this book?

Baldwin first opened my eyes to the possibilities of memoir. When English teachers held up fiction as the literary ideal, I was drawn to Baldwin’s essays instead. I was a New Yorker, living not far from the author’s Harlem, and growing up at the time of the civil rights movement. Baldwin was writing autobiographical non-fiction that, knitted together individual temperament and social history. “I left America because I doubted my ability to survive the fury of the color problem here,” he wrote in Nobody Knows My Name. I read that paragraph as the daughter of Czech Jewish immigrants, white people who had survived both Nazism and Stalinism. Baldwin’s voice was like the voices I heard at home telling stories of the Second World War. It was both compelling and trustworthy. Fifty years later, I still think so.

By James Baldwin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Nobody Knows My Name as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'These essays ... live and grow in the mind' James Campbell, Independent

Being a writer, says James Baldwin in this searing collection of essays, requires 'every ounce of stamina he can summon to attempt to look on himself and the world as they are'. His seminal 1961 follow-up to Notes on a Native Son shows him responding to his times and exploring his role as an artist with biting precision and emotional power: from polemical pieces on racial segregation and a journey to 'the Old Country' of the Southern states, to reflections on figures such as Ingmar Bergman and Andre…


Book cover of Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Its Sources

W. Jason Miller Author Of Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric

From my list on Martin Luther King, Jr. and his words.

Why am I passionate about this?

Lost audio reels, archived poetry drafts, personal interviews, and undeveloped photograph negatives spark my compulsive curiosity to tell stories about language that people have never heard. Uncovering what is hidden has led to a digital project dedicated to Martin Luther King’s first “I Have a Dream” speech, a museum exhibit based on never-before-seen images of an 1,800 person KKK march staged in opposition to a King appearance in 1966, and an intimate interview with Dorothy Cotton about her memories of Dr. King. Of my three books, I have written a recent biography, Langston Hughes: Critical Lives. Part of my current research details the poet’s collaborative relationship with jazz singer Nina Simone.  

W.'s book list on Martin Luther King, Jr. and his words

W. Jason Miller Why did W. love this book?

This groundbreaking study is an insider’s guide to how a whole era of black southern preachers spoke to their congregations. Ever-curious about the artistry it takes to riff, remix, and sample earlier sources, this book illuminates the added depth that comes with language once the various trajectories of its previous uses are named, contextualized, and dated. Every new voice has an older one behind it. Seeing where they merge is a fascinating journey when someone this informed is driving.

By Keith D. Miller,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Voice of Deliverance as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Martin Luther King Jr's words defined, mobilized and embodied much of the American civil rights movement, crystallizing the hope and demand for racial justice in America. His powerful sermons and speeches were unique in their ability to unite blacks and whites in the quest for reform. Yet, disclosures about King's unattributed appropriations in his PhD dissertation have raised the broader question of whether King's persuasive voice was truly his own. In this study of the language of King, Keith D. Miller explores his words to find the intellectual roots, spiritual resonances and actual sources of those speeches and essays that…


Book cover of The American South: A Very Short Introduction

Mike Bunn Author Of Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America's Revolutionary Era

From Mike's 3 favorite reads in 2023.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Historian Writer Reader Traveler Educator

Mike's 3 favorite reads in 2023

Mike Bunn Why did Mike love this book?

I love the economy of words. Say what you mean, say it clearly, and say it concisely to have the most impact.

Charles Reagan Wilson’s “very short introduction” to the American South checks all those boxes but manages to present a panorama of regional history stretching back for centuries in a slim 126 pages. The book is printed in a small format so diminutive that it could almost fit in one’s pocket. But readers should not be fooled by the size of the publication.

It is packed with information about the cultural, social, political, and economic history of the distinctive region that is its focus and a surprisingly thorough and comprehensive overview of the region’s past. A great introduction, indeed. 

By Charles Reagan Wilson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The American South as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The American South is a distinctive place with a dramatic history, and has significance beyond its regional context in the twenty first century. The American South: A Very Short Introduction explores the history of the South as a cultural crossroads, a meeting place between western Europe and West Africa. The South's beginnings illuminate the expansion of Europe into the New World, creating a colonial slave society that distinguished it from other parts of
the United States but fostered commonalities with other colonial societies. The Civil War and civil rights movement transformed the South in differing ways and remain a part…


Book cover of The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Dorsey Nunn Author Of What Kind of Bird Can't Fly: A Memoir of Resilience and Resurrection

From my list on the strength it takes to be Black in America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I began advocating for the rights of California prisoners and their families while incarcerated. As co-director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC), in 2003, I cofounded All of Us or None (AOUON), a grassroots movement of formerly incarcerated people working on their own behalf to secure their civil and human rights. AOUON is now the policy and advocacy arm of LSPC, which I have led as executive director since 2011. Collective victories include ending indefinite solitary confinement in California, expanding access to housing and employment for formerly incarcerated people, and restoring the vote to those on parole and probation. 

Dorsey's book list on the strength it takes to be Black in America

Dorsey Nunn Why did Dorsey love this book?

This was a book I first read nearly fifty years ago after my childhood friend Nate Harrington taught me to read while we were in prison together at 18 and 19 years old. As part of our commitment to helping each other return to our communities as an asset and not a liability, the men in prison taught each other political education classes, which included reading key texts like Malcolm X’s autobiography.

This book gave me an indication that I could do something different with my life. That moment occurred when it was revealed that Malcolm was known as “Detroit Red” on the streets of New York City–but when he went to prison and found a true education, he also embraced a new identity and new way of life. He died as Malcolm. His journey indicated that I could make a transition, too. It also helped me recognize that If…

By Malcolm X, Alex Haley,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked The Autobiography of Malcolm X as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

ONE OF TIME’S TEN MOST IMPORTANT NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time. The Autobiography of Malcolm X stands as the definitive statement of a movement…


Book cover of The Wall Between

Arlene Voski Avakian Author Of Lion Woman's Legacy: An Armenian-American Memoir

From my list on social consciousness in historical contexts.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was an angry girl, railing against the difference between the expectations and restrictions on me and my younger brother. I was also the child of survivors and victims of the Armenian genocide, and I grew up in 1950 when my immigrant family didn’t fit the representations of “Americans” as they were then depicted. And I was white. I wanted to change myself, the world and learn why there was so much injustice in the U.S. I went back to school at UMass, got connected to faculty in the Afro-American Studies Department, and joined the group that was creating the Women’s Studies Program. I am still learning and trying to change the world.  

Arlene's book list on social consciousness in historical contexts

Arlene Voski Avakian Why did Arlene love this book?

I met Anne Braden at an anti-racism conference in the 80s. 

When I heard this older white woman with a thick Southern accent began to speak about the Civil Rights Movement as the second American revolution, I began to cry. 

I was feeling very alone as a white woman in Women’s Studies trying to bring race to the center of the discipline as well as my activism. I was both relieved to know that Braden existed and pained that I had never heard of her.

The book is a memoir of what happened to Anne and her husband Carl when they agreed to Andrew Wade’s request to buy a house and sell it to him, not as a political act but because he and his wife wanted a house in a new development that was segregated and the Wades were Black. 

The Bradens were indicted by the state of Kentucky…

By Anne Braden,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Wall Between as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"The Wall Between is a chilling depiction of a pattern repeated over and over again across the South as brave Blacks and whites tried to breach the barrier between the races. . . . We need to know Anne Braden's story, perhaps even more in 1999 than when she wrote it in 1957." -from the foreword by Julian Bond

In 1954, Anne and Carl Braden bought a house in an all-white neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky, on behalf of a black couple, Andrew and Charlotte Wade. The Wall Between is Anne Braden's account of what resulted from this act of friendship:…


Book cover of Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution

John M. Giggie Author Of Bloody Tuesday: The Untold Story of the Struggle for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa

From my list on how we unlock secrets about the past.

Why am I passionate about this?

I spent the last eleven years listening to people describe the worst day of their lives and how they found the grace and courage to persevere. Little in my professional training as a historian prepared me to sit with them and help them make sense of their past. Each of these books offers pathways to recapturing a violent past and imagining how we keep living. 

John's book list on how we unlock secrets about the past

John M. Giggie Why did John love this book?

It took McWhorter eighteen years to unlock the secrets of Birmingham, where she grew up. This is the finest local civil rights movement study, a sweeping story of Black courage in the face of repression.

It is also a deeply personal story. Asking why so many whites violently defended the color line, she found her answer hidden deep inside her own family’s history.

By Diane McWhorter,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Carry Me Home as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now with a new afterword, the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatic account of the Civil Rights Era’s climactic battle in Birmingham as the movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., brought down the institutions of segregation.

"The Year of Birmingham," 1963, was a cataclysmic turning point in America’s long civil rights struggle. Child demonstrators faced down police dogs and fire hoses in huge nonviolent marches against segregation. Ku Klux Klansmen retaliated by bombing the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing four young black girls. Diane McWhorter, daughter of a prominent Birmingham family, weaves together police and FBI records, archival documents, interviews with black…


Book cover of Threads of Peace: How Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Changed the World
Book cover of Marching Together: Women of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
Book cover of Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

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