Freedom Civil

American freedom is typically associated with the fight of the oppressed for a better world. But for centuries, whenever the federal government intervened on behalf of nonwhite people, many white Americans fought back in the name of freedom—their freedom to dominate others. In Freedom’s Dominion, historian Jefferson Cowie traces this complex saga by focusing on a quintessentially American place: Barbour County, Alabama, the ancestral home of political firebrand George Wallace.

In 1964 a small group of African American men in Jonesboro, Louisiana, defied the nonviolence policy of the mainstream civil rights movement and formed an armed self-defense organization - the Deacons for Defense and Justice - to protect movement workers from vigilante and police violence. With their largest and most famous chapter at the center of a bloody campaign in the Ku Klux Klan stronghold of Bogalusa, Louisiana, the Deacons became a popular symbol of the growing frustration with Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent strategy.

(This is a "Sequel Series" to the Jack Turner Suspense Series - picks right up after Book 4 but can easily be read first) In Book 1 of the new Joe Boyd Suspense Series, Lt. Joe Boyd and his partner Hank Jensen have been tasked with creating a brand new Cold Case Squad for the Culpepper Police Department. Hoping to garner some much-needed positive publicity, their captain asks them to solve a string of unsolved murders from the 1980’s. Before they get far, Joe is interrupted with an alarming request from his good friend, Professor Jack Turner. Jack and Rachel believe they have stumbled ...

Historian Bennett Parten provides a groundbreaking account of Sherman’s March to the Sea—the critical Civil War campaign that destroyed the Confederacy—told for the first time from the perspective of the tens of thousands of enslaved people who fled to the Union lines and transformed Sherman’s march into the biggest liberation event in American history.

The riveting memoirs of the outstanding moral and political leader of our time, Long Walk to Freedom brilliantly re-creates the drama of the experiences that helped shape Nelson Mandela's destiny. Emotive, compelling, and uplifting, Long Walk to Freedom is the exhilarating story of an epic life; a story of hardship, resilience, and ultimate triumph told with the clarity and eloquence of a born leader.

The religious right taught America to misread the Bible. Christians have misused Scripture to consolidate power, stoke fears, and defend against enemies. But people who have been hurt by the attacks of Christian nationalism can help us rediscover God's vision for faith in public life. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove explores how religious culture wars have misrepresented Christianity at the expense of the poor, and how listening to marginalized communities can help us hear God's call to love and justice in the world.

Civil resistance is a method of conflict through which unarmed civilians use a variety of coordinated methods (strikes, protests, demonstrations, boycotts, and many other tactics) to prosecute a conflict without directly harming or threatening to harm an opponent. This form of political action is now a mainstay across the globe. In Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know, Erica Chenoweth explains what civil resistance is, how it works, why it sometimes fails, how violence and repression affect it, and the long-term impacts of such resistance.

A true story told from the perspectives of two heroes of the legendary Freedom Rides of the early 1960s Civil Rights Movement, this Robert F. Silbert Honor Book is a stunning testament to the struggle for social progress despite deeply entrenched racism in the American South. A vivid narration makes this important and inspiring history come alive for today's readers.

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul - the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter - environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man - she was doing her small part to build a better world.

Ruth’s beau died - simply because he was a slave.She is determined to help other enslaved people as she assists with the Underground Railroad. Recently freed and illiterate, Ruth is hired to bake mouth-watering delicious bread in a Philadelphia bakery. Her boss Joseph is kind, handsome, and determined to put an end to slavery. She feels emotionally connected to him as they work together for a common cause. His presence is like a fresh splash of spring rain on her parched soul. However, Joseph has plans. He’s determined to make some major changes in his life. He desperately wants to ...

In 1970, C. T. Vivian, a close colleague of Martin Luther King, Jr. and a member of his executive staff, sat down to take stock of the civil rights movement and the progress it had made. His assessment was that it failed, and that the blame lay in the existence of myths about America. As prophetic today as it was fifty years ago, Vivian's voice rings out as a critique and a call to action for a society in deep need of justice and peace. The Black struggle for independence is more of an uphill climb than ever.

Personhood chronicles the internal struggles and changing ideas about race, sex, religion, war, corporate rights, and poverty that shaped the personhood struggle over half a century. The book explores how Americans came to take for granted that fetal personhood requires criminalization and suggests that other ways of valuing both fetal life and women's equality might be possible.

From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a “groundbreaking” (Time) approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society and in ourselves—now updated, with a new preface.

Since 2002, Mohamedou Slahi has been imprisoned at the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In all these years, the United States has never charged him with a crime. A federal judge ordered his release in March 2010, but the U.S. government fought that decision, and there is no sign that the United States plans to let him go.

Throughout history, humans have been driven by the quest for two cherished ideals: community and freedom. The two don’t coexist easily. We value individuality and self-reliance, yet are utterly dependent on community for our most basic needs. In this intricately crafted and thought-provoking book, Sebastian Junger examines the tension that lies at the heart of what it means to be human.

In this book Jaycee Dugard describes the life she never thought she would live to see: from her first sight of her mother to her first time meeting her grownup sister, her first trip to the dentist to her daughters' first day of school, her first taste of champagne to her first hangover, her first time behind the wheel to her first speeding ticket, and her first dance at a friend's wedding to her first thoughts about the possibility of a future relationship.

John Lewis: The Conscience of a Nation is a compelling portrait of one of America’s greatest heroes, whose courage and sacrifice helped to bend the arc of history toward justice. This audiobook is a call to action, a reminder that the fight for equality is far from over—and that each of us has the power to make a difference.

Black Hands, White House documents and appraises the role enslaved women and men played in building the US, both its physical and its fiscal infrastructure. The book highlights the material commodities produced by enslaved communities during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. These commodities enriched European and US economies; contributed to the material and monetary wealth of the nation's founding fathers, other early European immigrants, and their descendants; and bolstered the wealth of present-day companies founded during the American slave era.

Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in The Soul of America Meacham shows us how what Abraham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature” have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln and other presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and LBJ, and illuminating the courage of influential citizen activists and civil rights pioneers, Meacham brings vividly to life turning points in American history. Each of these dramatic hours have been shaped by the contest to lead the country to look forward rather than back.

In The Battle for the Black Mind, Dr. Karida Brown explores the struggle to define and control the education of African Americans amid shifting societal attitudes and forms of systemic exclusion. From the perspective of freed slaves seeking empowerment and liberation through education, to the white elites aiming to shape the future of the workforce and consolidate power, The Battle for the Black Mind explores the formation of segregated education systems and the influence of philanthropic organizations, religious institutions, and Black educators themselves.