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American Protests: A History
From the civil rights movement in 1968 to the Stonewall Riots and beyond.
Published on June 4, 2020
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63
Taylor BranchThis Pulitzer Prize winner is the first part of Taylor Branch’s renowned trilogy on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and it’s considered one of the most definitive and thorough accounts of the civil rights movement. If you want to really dig past what you learned about King in school and what you saw in “Selma,” start here.
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
Angela Y. DavisActivist Angela Davis has been speaking out against police violence and the mass incarceration of people of color for decades. “Freedom is a Constant Struggle” is a short but powerful examination of the prison-industrial complex and the need for intersectional solutions to systemic problems.
The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle
Lillian FadermanAn overview of gay and lesbian history from the 1950s until now, expertly and exhaustively cataloging major milestones and hurdles. Lambda Literary Award winner Lillian Faderman writes about decades worth of history with a novelist’s flair.
Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution
Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution
Diane McWhorterExperience a watershed moment in the civil rights era with this Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the cataclysmic “Year of Birmingham.” In 1963, Dr. King led nonviolent demonstrations, in which peaceful protestors were met with fire hoses and police dogs. See how the dramatic events helped topple segregation.
Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution
David CarterThe Stonewall Riots were a turning point for gay rights, a flashpoint that led to increased activism and much higher visibility and respect of LGBTQ culture today. David Carter’s history chronicles how the modern gay rights movement got started.
Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
Jeff ChangIn the wake of the civil rights movement, a wholly American musical genre sprang up: Hip hop. It continued to chronicle the ongoing struggles of marginalized voices and became the sound of protest itself. This is the most comprehensive and styled history on the hip hop generation.
This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century
Mark Engler“This is an Uprising” shows how peaceful mass protest is one of the most powerful tools to exact lasting social change. It’s both a historical overview of how past protests have succeeded, and a playbook for any activists looking to end police brutality and more now.
Defiance of the Patriots: The Boston Tea Party and the Making of America
Benjamin L. CarpThe United States of America was founded on protest and revolution. The Boston Tea Party, a protest over unfair taxation, was the protest that escalated tensions between colonists and the British and set the two on the path to war. Nearly every American citizen knows about this revolt, but “Defiance of the Patriots” expands the story greatly and explodes myths about the episode.
Common Sense
Thomas PainePublished early in 1776, Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” became a rallying cry for revolutionaries in America. “Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer,” Paine writes.