The Civil Rights Reader

by Armstrong, Julie Buckner; Schmidt, Amy

• ISBN13: 9780820331812
• ISBN10: 0820331813
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-01-15
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

This anthology of drama, essays, fiction, and poetry presents a thoughtful, classroom-tested selection of the best literature for learning about the long civil rights movement. Unique in its focus on creative writing, the volume also ranges beyond a familiar 1954-68 chronology to include works from the 1890s to the present. The civil rights movement was a complex, ongoing process of defining national values such as freedom, justice, and equality. In ways that historical documents cannot, these collected writings show how Americans negotiated this process--politically, philosophically, emotionally, spiritually, and creatively.Gathered here are works by some of the most influential writers to engage issues of race and social justice in America, including James Baldwin, Flannery O'Connor, Amiri Baraka, and Nikki Giovanni. The volume begins with works from the post-Reconstruction period when racial segregation became legally sanctioned and institutionalized. This section, titled "The Rise of Jim Crow," spans the period from Frances E. W. Harper'sIola Leroyto Ralph Ellison'sInvisible Man. In the second section, "The Fall of Jim Crow," Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and a chapter fromThe Autobiography of Malcolm Xappear alongside poems by Robert Hayden, June Jordan, and others who responded to these key figures and to the events of the time. "Reflections and Continuing Struggles," the last section, includes works by such current authors as Rita Dove, Anthony Grooms, and Patricia J. Williams. These diverse perspectives on the struggle for civil rights can promote the kinds of conversations that we, as a nation, still need to initiate.

Author Biography

Julie Buckner Armstrong is an associate professor of English at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. She is coeditor of Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement: Freedom's Bittersweet Song. Amy Schmidt is completing a doctoral degree in English at the University of Arkansas.

Table of Contents

Contents	p. xi
Contents	p. xiii
Preface	p. xix
Acknowledgments	p. xxv
The Rise of Jim Crow	p. 1
Frances E. W. Harper (1825-1911)	p. 10
Selections from Iola Leroy, Chapters 26 ("Open Questions") and 27 ("Diverging Paths")	p. 11
Booker T. Washington (c. 1856-1915)	p. 19
"The Atlanta Exposition Address" (Selection from Up from Slavery, Chapter 14)	p. 20
Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932)	p. 23
Selections from The Marrow of Tradition, Chapters 3 ("The Editor at Work") and 35 ("Mine Enemy, O Mine Enemy!")	p. 25
W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963)	p. 38
Selection from The Souls of Black Folk, Chapter 1 ("Of Our Spiritual Strivings")	p. 39
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)	p. 45
"Sympathy"	p. 46
"The Haunted Oak"	p. 47
Mary Burrill (1879-1946)	p. 49
Aftermath	p. 50
Angelina Weld Grimke (1880-1958)	p. 60
"The Black Finger"	p. 61
"Tenebris"	p. 61
Claude McKay (1889-1948)	p. 62
"If We Must Die"	p. 63
"America"	p. 63
Lillian Smith (1897-1966)	p. 64
Selection from Killers of the Dream, Chapter 1 ("When I Was a Child")	p. 64
Langston Hughes (1902-1967)	p. 74
"I, Too"	p. 76
"Song for a Dark Girl"	p. 76
"Harlem"	p. 77
Erskine Caldwell (1903-1987)	p. 77
"The End of Christy Tucker"	p. 78
Richard Wright (1908-1960)	p. 83
Selection from Black Boy, Chapter 13	p. 84
Ralph Ellison (1914-1994)	p. 91
Selection from Invisible Man, Chapter 1 ("The Battle Royal")	p. 92
The Fall of Jim Crow	p. 105
Eudora Welty (1909-2001)	p. 114
"Where Is the Voice Coming From?"	p. 115
Robert Hayden (1913-1980)	p. 119
"El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz"	p. 120
Dudley Randall (1914-2000)	p. 122
"Ballad of Birmingham"	p. 123
Margaret Walker (1915-1998)	p. 124
"At the Lincoln Monument in Washington, August 28, 1963"	p. 125
"For Andy Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney"	p. 126
"Micah"	p. 129
"Oxford Is a Legend"	p. 129
Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)	p. 130
"A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi, Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon."	p. 131
"The Chicago Defender Sends a Man to Little Rock"	p. 135
James Baldwin (1924-1987)	p. 137
"Notes of a Native Son"	p. 138
Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)	p. 154
"Everything That Rises Must Converge"	p. 155
Malcolm X (1925-1965)	p. 167
Selection from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chapter 11 ("Saved")	p. 168
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)	p. 179
"Letter from a Birmingham Jail"	p. 180
Howard Sackler (1929-1982)	p. 193
The Great White Hope, Selections from Act 1	p. 194
Amiri Baraka (b. 1934)	p. 210
Dutchman	p. 211
"A Poem for Black Hearts"	p. 226
"It's Nation Time"	p. 227
Audre Lorde (1934-1992)	p. 230
"Suffer the Children"	p. 231
"Rites of Passage"	p. 232
Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998)	p. 233
Soul on Ice, Selection from Chapter 1 ("On Becoming")	p. 233
Lucille Clifton (b. 1936)	p. 238
"apology (to the panthers)"	p. 239
"eldridge"	p. 240
"malcolm"	p. 240
"jackie robinson"	p. 240
June Jordan (1936-2002)	p. 241
"In Memoriam: Martin Luther King, Jr."	p. 242
"I Celebrate the Sons of Malcolm"	p. 243
"1977: Poem for Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer"	p. 243
Michael S. Harper (b. 1938)	p. 245
"Martin's Blues"	p. 246
"American History"	p. 246
Haki Madhubuti (b. 1942)	p. 247
"Malcolm spoke / who listened?"	p. 248
Nikki Giovanni (b. 1943)	p. 249
"Adulthood"	p. 250
"Black Power"	p. 252
"The Funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr."	p. 252
Reflections and Continuing Struggles	p. 253
Constance Curry (b. 1933)	p. 260
Selections from "Wild Geese to the Past"	p. 261
Toi Derricotte (b. 1941)	p. 271
The Black Notebooks, Selections from "The Club"	p. 272
Wanda Coleman (b. 1946)	p. 282
"Emmett Till"	p. 283
David Hernandez (b. 1946)	p. 287
"Martin and My Father"	p. 288
Marilyn Nelson (b. 1946)	p. 289
"Tuskegee Airfield"	p. 290
Bebe Moore Campbell (1950-2006)	p. 292
Selection from Your Blues Ain't Like Mine, Chapter 44	p. 293
Patricia J. Williams (b. 1951)	p. 303
Selection from The Alchemy of Race and Rights, "The Death of the Profane"	p. 303
Rita Dove (b. 1952)	p. 310
"The Enactment"	p. 311
"Rosa"	p. 312
Walter Mosley (b. 1952)	p. 312
"Equal Opportunity"	p. 314
Anthony Grooms (b. 1955)	p. 325
"Negro Progress"	p. 326
Cyrus Cassells (b. 1957)	p. 342
"Soul Make a Path through Shouting"	p. 343
Honoree Fanonne Jeffers (b. 1967)	p. 344
"Confederate Pride Day at Bama"	p. 345
"Giving Thanks for Water"	p. 345
Chronology of Publication Dates and Historical Events	p. 347
Selected Bibliography	p. 355
Credits	p. 357
Index of Authors and Titles	p. 361
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.