On July 17, 1944, a massive explosion rocked the segregated Navy base at Port Chicago, California, killing more than 300 sailors who were at the docks, critically injuring off-duty men in their bunks, and shattering windows up to a mile away. On August 9th, 244 men refused to go back to work until unsafe and unfair conditions at the docks were addressed. When the dust settled, fifty were charged with mutiny, facing decades in jail and even execution. This is a fascinating story of the prejudice that faced black men and women in America's armed forces during World War II, and a nuanced look at those who gave their lives in service of a country where they lacked the most basic rights. portchicago

A revealing and dramatic chronicle of the twelve months leading up to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination Martin Luther King, Jr. died in one of the most shocking assassinations the world has known, but little is remembered about the life he led in his final year. New York Times bestselling author and award-winning broadcaster Tavis Smiley recounts the final 365 days of King's life, revealing the minister's trials and tribulations -- denunciations by the press, rejection from the president, dismissal by the country's black middle class and militants, assaults on his character, ideology, and political tactics, to name a few -- all of which he had to rise above in order to lead and address the racism, poverty, and militarism that threatened to destroy our democracy. Smiley's DEATH OF A KING paints a portrait of a leader and visionary in a narrative different from all that have come before. Here is an exceptional glimpse into King's life -- one that adds both nuance and gravitas to his legacy as an American hero. dking

This is the first book to offer an over-arching view of the ways race has indelibly shaped the history of the United States. David Brown and Clive Webb trace the turbulent course of southern race relations from the colonial origins of the plantation system to the maturation of slavery in the nineteenth century, through the rise of a new racial order during the Civil War and Reconstruction, to the civil rights movement of the twentieth century. While the authors recognize the very different racial balances in different parts of the region, the divisions among southern whites, and the non-racial basis of many aspects of southern distinctiveness, they convincingly put forward the case that the driving engine of Southern history is the attempt to resolve the dilemmas posed by the racial issue. They focus on the omnipresent racial basis of the changes over time in the region's politics, economy, and social structure, as well as other main areas of study in American history including culture, class, and gender. [Clive_Webb__David_Brown]_Race_in_the_American_Sou_BookZZ.org_

In Racial Innocence, Robin Bernstein argues that the concept of "childhood innocence" has been central to U.S. racial formation since the mid-nineteenth century. Children--white ones imbued with innocence, black ones excluded from it, and others of color erased by it--figured pivotally in sharply divergent racial agendas from slavery and abolition to antiblack violence and the early civil rights movement. Bernstein takes up a rich archive including books, toys, theatrical props, and domestic knickknacks which she analyzes as "scriptive things" that invite or prompt historically-located practices while allowing for resistance and social improvisation. Integrating performance studies with literary and visual analysis, Bernstein offers singular readings of theatrical productions from blackface minstrelsy to Uncle Tom's Cabin to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; literary works by Joel Chandler Harris, Harriet Wilson, and Frances Hodgson Burnett; material culture including Topsy pincushions, Uncle Tom and Little Eva handkerchiefs, and Raggedy Ann dolls; and visual texts ranging from fine portraiture to advertisements for lard substitute. Throughout, Bernstein shows how "innocence" gradually became the exclusive province of white children--until the Civil Rights Movement succeeded not only in legally desegregating public spaces, but in culturally desegregating the concept of childhood itself. [Robin_Bernstein]_Racial_Innocence_Performing_Ame_BookZZ.org_

Through a reexamination of the earliest struggles against Jim Crow, Blair Kelley exposes the fullness of African American efforts to resist the passage of segregation laws dividing trains and streetcars by race in the early Jim Crow era. Right to Ride chronicles the litigation and local organizing against segregated rails that led to the Plessy v. Ferguson decision in 1896 and the streetcar boycott movement waged in twenty-five southern cities from 1900 to 1907. Kelley tells the stories of the brave but little-known men and women who faced down the violence of lynching and urban race riots to contest segregation. Focusing on three key cities-New Orleans, Richmond, and Savannah-Kelley explores the community organizations that bound protestors together and the divisions of class, gender, and ambition that sometimes drove them apart. The book forces a reassessment of the timelines of the black freedom struggle, revealing that a period once dismissed as the age of accommodation should in fact be characterized as part of a history of protest and resistance. [Blair_L._M._Kelley]_Right_to_Ride_Streetcar_Boyc_BookZZ.org_

The story of the civil rights movement typically begins with the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 and culminates with the 1965 voting rights struggle in Selma. But as Martha Biondi shows, a grassroots struggle for racial equality in the urban North began a full ten years before the rise of the movement in the South. This story is an essential first chapter, not only to the southern movement that followed, but to the riots that erupted in northern and western cities just as the civil rights movement was achieving major victories. Biondi tells the story of African Americans who mobilized to make the war against fascism a launching pad for a postwar struggle against white supremacy at home. Rather than seeking integration in the abstract, black New Yorkers demanded first-class citizenship--jobs for all, affordable housing, protection from police violence, access to higher education, and political representation. This powerful local push for economic and political equality met broad resistance, yet managed to win several landmark laws barring discrimination and segregation. To Stand and Fight demonstrates how black New Yorkers launched the modern civil rights struggle and left a rich legacy. [Martha_Biondi]_To_Stand_and_Fight_The_Struggle_f_BookZZ.org_

The war industries associated with World War II brought unparalleled employment opportunities for African Americans in San Francisco, a city whose African American population grew by over 650% between 1940 and 1945. With this population increase came an increase in racial discrimination directed at African Americans, primarily in the employment and housing sectors. In San Francisco, most African Americans were effectively barred from renting or buying homes in all but a few neighborhoods and, except for the well-educated and lucky, employment opportunities were open in near-entry levels for white-collar positions or in unskilled and semi-skilled blue-collar positions. As San Francisco's African American population expanded, civil rights groups formed coalitions to picket and protest, thereby effectively expanding job opportunities and opening the housing market for African American San Franciscans. This book describes and explains some of the obstacles and triumphs faced and achieved in areas such as housing, employment, education and civil rights. It reaches across disciplines from African American studies and history into urban studies and sociology. [Paul_T._Miller]_The_Postwar_Struggle_for_Civil_Ri_BookZZ.org_