Civil Rights

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Below are groups and resources (books, articles, websites, etc.) related to this topic. Click on an item’s title to go its resource page with author, publisher, description/abstract and other details, a link to the full text if available, as well as links to related topics in the Subject Index. You can also browse the Title, Author, Subject, Chronological, Dewey, LoC, and Format indexes, or use the Search box.
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Connexions Library

American Power and the New Mandarins
Chomsky, Noam
Book
1969
Chomsky writes about American power and violence, especially in the context of the Vietnam war, and he focuses especially on the complicity of American intellectuals in supporting and enabling the Ame...
Behind the Confederate Flag Controversy: The Unfinished Civil War: Against The Current vol. 85
Miah, Malik
Article
2000
Some 50,000 people, ninety percent African Americans, marched in Columbia, South Carolina, on January 17, the federal holiday honoring the great civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. The march p...
Calling All Radicals: How Grassroots Organizers Can Help Save Our Democracy
Thompson, Gabriel
Book
2007
Thompson argues that we can reclaim our democracy through grassroots organizing.
Canada's 1960s: The Ironies of Identity in a Rebellious Era
Palmer, Bryan D.
Book
2008
A history of social movements of the 1960s, including Canada’s student and anti-war movements, the rise of women’s liberation, labour agitation, and Quebec’s independence movement.
The Case for Socialism
Maass, Alan
Book
2005
An argument for socialism: a society built from the bottom up through the struggles of ordinary people against exploitation, oppression, and injustice -- one in which people come before profit. A soci...
The Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement: For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution!
Cone, Paul
Article
2010
The mass mobilization of black people in the Southern civil rights movement, and the subsequent Northern ghetto rebellions, disrupted and challenged the racist American bourgeois order. It shattered t...
Coming Home to the Struggle: Against The Current vol. 134
Thompson, Wendy
Article
2008
I became a political activist at the age of 12, when I marched for open housing in Evanston, Illinois. We lived next to the Black community in Evanston; African-American students made up 40% of my gra...
Connexions Library: Race, Racism, Ethnicity, Multiculturalism Focus
Website
2009
Selected articles, books, websites and other resources on race, racism, ethnicity, multiculturalism, identity.
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movements: A Radical Democratic Vision
Ransby, Barbara
Book
2003
An insightful biography on one of the leading organizers of the American civil rights movement.
Fire in the Streets: America in the 1960s
Viorst, Milton
Book
1980
A political and cultural history of each year of the 1960's, focusing on one person to exemplify the year. Activist John Lewis is used to emphasize the Civil Rights movements heating up in 1960; Clark...
The Free Speech Movement and the Negro Revolution
Dunayevskaya, Raya
Article
1965
It is, of course, true that it was contact with the Negro people that inspired the Berkeley revolt. It is, however, also true that the Berkeley revolt, followed by the teach-ins, in turn, changed the ...
Freedom rides: Connexipedia Article
Article
Freedom Riders were Civil Rights activists who rode on interstate buses into the segregated southern United States.
Tim Hector: A Caribbean Radical's Story
Buhle, Paul
Book
2006
An account of the life of Antiguan activist Tim Hector.
The Hidden History of the SNCC Research Department
Seidman, Derek
Article
2017
SNCC may have been the most important organization of the postwar civil rights movement. It grew out of the wave of sit-ins in 1960 and was guided initially by Ella Baker, the foundational organizer w...
The I.F. Stone's Weekly Reader
Stone, I.F.
Book
1973
An anthology of 20 years of journalism by independent journalists I.F. Stone.
In a Time of Torment
Stone, I.F.
Book
1968
Independent journalist I.F. Stone on the events and issues of the 1960s.
An Interview With Noam Chomsky on Obama's Human Rights Record: Nothing Can Justify Torture
Bailey, Eric
Article
2012
America's human rights record under the administration of President Obama and the military intervention policies that have seen increased use during the Arab Spring.
Is that an archive in your basement... or are you just hoarding?: Sources News Release
Article
2012
Are you an 'accidental archivist'? Have you been saving the publications and documents produced by the social justice projects you've been involved in? Then Connexions would like to hear from you.
Israeli activists 'thought it nice' to hold BBQ near Palestinian hunger strikers
Ansar, Mo
Article
2017
In the face of increasing human rights abuses being committed towards Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, an Israeli right-wing group mocked the Palestinian mass hunger strike by hosting a BBQ out...
The limits of anti-racism
Reed, Adolph J.
Article
2009
The contemporary discourse of 'antiracism' is focused much more on taxonomy than politics. It emphasizes the name by which we should call some strains of inequality -- whether they should be broadly r...
The Long Haul: An autobiography
Horton, Myles
Book
1990
Myles Horton tells the story of the Highlander Folk School. A major catalyst for social change in the United States for over sixty years, this school has touched the lives of so many people, including...
Long Way From Home: The story of the Sixties generation in Canada
Kostash, Myrna
Book
1980
An account of the upheavals and transformations experienced by those who came of age in the 1960s, a time when international currents of change intersected with specifically Canadian events and circum...
Machismo and Its Discontents: Against The Current vol. 134
Ferguson, Ann
Article
2008
The one clear memory I have of 1968 (as opposed to all those other antiwar and pro-civil rights struggles in which I was engaged in the 1960s and ‘70s) is that I was a member of a faculty ad-hoc group...
The Making of Jericho Road: Against The Current vol. 132
Williams, Charles
Article
2008
An interview with Michael Honey. The paperback edition of Michael Honey’s Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign is released this January 2008.
Malcolm X Speaks
X. Malcolm; edited and with prefatory notes by George Breitman
Book
1965
A series of speeches, seminars and press conferences given by Malcolm X during the last years of his life in 1964 and early 1965.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson
Robinson, Jo Ann Gibson
Book
1987
Robinson recounts the origins and sustaining force of the famous boycott led by Montgomery's African American women.
The 1960 Sit-ins in Context: Against The Current vol. 147
Oppenheimer, Marty
Article
2010
We think of the Sit-In Movement as beginning on February 1, 1960, fifty years ago. In the minds of many this was the initiating event that led to many subsequent developments in the broader civil righ...
The 1960 Sit-ins in Context
Oppenheimer, Marty
Article
2010
The Civil Rights Movement that we associate with the 1960s was the culmination of a vast set of social and economic changes. The tradition of Black struggle itself, going back to the very beginnings o...
No Outside Saviors!: Against The Current vol. 136
Feeley, Dianne; Finkel, David
Article
2008
Against The Current spoke with Gwendolyn M. Patton as part of our retrospective on the events of 1968 and the surrounding years.
Obama and "I Have a Dream" in 2008: Against The Current vol. 132
Miah, Malik
Article
2008
As we enter the 2008 presidential election, it is noteworthy that Illinois Senator Barack Obama is still a serious contender for the Democratic Party nomination. I say “noteworthy” because his campaig...
On Revolution
Arendt, Hannah
Book
1963
Arendt examines the American, French, and Russian revolutions and draws conclusions about the meaning of revolution.
The Other Police State: Private Cops vs. the Public Good
Rosen, David
Article
2013
A revealing study on "Spooky Business: A New Report on Corporate Espionage Against Non-profits" written by Gary Ruskin confirms one’s worst suspicions about the ever-expanding two-headed U.S. security...
A Parable of Women's Liberation: Against The Current vol. 134
Tax, Meredith
Article
2008
Interview with Meredith Tax.
A People's History of the United States: 1492 - Present
Zinn, Howard
Book
1995
Zinn's history includes those most ignored by typical American textbook history, including Indians, blacks, women and workers.
The Power of Women United: Against The Current vol. 134
Dawson, Kipp
Article
2008
Interview with Kipp Dawson.
Race and Class: Paris to New Orleans: Against The Current vol. 120
Miah, Malik
Article
2006
It turns out that the city of lights and city of jazz have a lot in common. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and militant explosions in the suburbs of Paris expose the underbelly of racism and class...
Racism and Responsibility: Against The Current vol. 133
Fish, George
Article
2008
Malik Miah writes in Against the Current 131, “[Orlando] Patterson, and others in Black academia and middle-class civil rights organizations, are right to point to internal problems within the Black c...
Racism and Structural Solutions: Against The Current vol. 135
McCarthy, Michael A.
Article
2008
When Barack Obama raised the specter of race in a March 18 speech that went far beyond what one would expect from the Democratic Party, some of us on the left were hopeful. Since the 1970s, race-speec...
Randolph, A. Philip: Connexipedia Article
Article
African-American civil rights leader. (1889-1979).
Religion and the Rise of Labor and Black Detroit: Against The Current vol. 134
Higbee, Mark
Article
2008
Historians and other scholars have given Detroit plentiful attention, including some very important books, yet in this vital new study Angela Dillard manages to approach the Motor City’s past in sever...
A Reluctant Memoir of the '50s and '60s: Against The Current vol. 134
Le Blanc, Paul
Article
2008
I have been asked to write a memoir that would give a sense of the old left/new left realities of the 1950s and ‘60s. That seems quite odd to me (why would I be writing such a thing?), until I look in...
Report of the Work Group on Civil and Political Rights: Church Persons' Seminar
Foster, John
Article
1978
A church seminar that asks whether or not Canadians are at risk of losing their civil liberties.
Response to George Fish: Against The Current vol. 133
Miah, Malik
Article
2008
George Fish raises an important point about the “taking personal responsibility” debate taking place within the Black community, especially at the academic and leadership level. But his criticism of m...
Review: Riding the Bus to Freedom: Against The Current vol. 132
Feeley, Dianne
Article
2008
The 1961 Freedom Rides challenged a racially segregated society by openly defying its customs, riding in interracial groups on interstate buses going South and desegregating the stations’ facilities. ...
Revolutionary Nonviolence: Essays by Dave Dellinger
Dellinger, Dave
Book
1970
Dellinger says that "those of us who oppose the violence of the status quo and reject the violence of armed revolt and class hatred bear a heavy responsibility to struggle existentially to provdew non...
Selma to Montgomery marches: Connexipedia Article
Article
Three marches in 1965 that marked the culmination of the voting rights movement of the American civil rights movement.
The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage
Gitlin, Todd
Book
1987
One of the best books on the Sixties in the U.S., bringing to life the political and cultural currents, including especially the music, which raged during that decade, and setting them in historical c...
'68: The Year of the Barricades
Caute, David
Book
1988
Caute's book looks at the explosive year 1968 (while situating it in the context of what had led up to it). One of the great strengths of this excellent book is that it looks at what was happening aro...
SNCC: The New Abolitionists
Zinn, Howard
Book
1964
An account of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
SNCC's 50-Year Legacy
El-Amin, Theresa
Article
2010
Celebrating SNCC's legacy.
The Socialist Register 1977: Volume 14: A Survey of Movements & Ideas
Miliband, Ralph; Saville, John (eds.)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1977
The Socialist Register 1980: Volume 17: A Survey of Movements & Ideas
Miliband, Ralph; Saville, John (eds.)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
1980
Spooky Business: Corporate Espionage Against Nonprofit Organizations
Ruskin, Gary
Article
2013
This report is an effort to document something about corporate espionage against nonprofit organizations. Law enforcement should prioritize investigating and prosecuting corporate espionage against no...
Still Got the News: Against The Current vol. 84
Esch, Betsy
Article
2000
As a student activist at the University of Michigan in the middle and late 1980s, I was part of a coalition of activists who planned and carried out a democratic takeover of our school's newspaper, Th...
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee: Connexipedia Article
Article
One of the principal organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
Support the New Freedom Riders: End US Support for Israeli Apartheid
Ruebner, Josh
Article
2011
Palestinian Freedom Riders are seeking their rights to be treated as equal human beings free to move about in their own land.
Thieving Sons of Bushes: Against The Current vol. 91
Miah, Malik
Article
2001
“Never Trust a Son of Bush” was one of many signs at George W. Bush's presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C. on January 20. Some 25,000 marched in Washington and 15,000 rallied in San Francisco...
Top 10 Civil-Rights Songs
Rothberg, Peter
Article
2018
Upon the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., some of the more popular civil-rights songs are remembered. The article includes online links to music videos.
Uncovering the Sixties: Life and Times of the Undergound Press
Peck, Abe
Book
1985
A book about the Sixties and how they were recorded by radical participants. It traces how movements and communities convinced that their news did not fit into the agenda of mainstream media covered t...
We Make the Road By Walking: Conversations on education and social change
Horton, Myles; Freire, Paulo
Book
1990
Horton, the founder of the Highlander Folk School, and Freire, a Brazilian education leader, are from two different backgrounds, but their shared views on the use of participatory education in bringin...
Weatherman
Jacobs, Harold
Book
1971
A history of the Weatherman organization.

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Bureau of Public Secrets
Articles from a Situationist perspective.
Connexions Archive & Library
The Connexions Archive & Library is Toronto-based project dedicated to keeping alive the rich history of grassroots movements for social justice. Connexions preserves 'alternative' histories that r...
News and Letters
An organization of Marxist-Humanists standing for the abolition of capitalism, both in its private property form and ins its state property form. We stand for the deveopment of new human relations; wh...

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Progressive U.S. website/newsletter.
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Serial Publication (Periodical)
Articles from a Marxist-Humanist perspective.