Let Freedom Ring: A Documentary History of the Modern Civil Rights Movement

The modern civil rights movement has been a field of immense interest and output. Full citations for each of the documents are included in the text and these citations are intended to serve as a guide to some of the best firsthand accounts of the movement. Suggestions for further readings on a variety of subjects follows.

Background material can be found in: C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow ( New York: Oxford, 1974); John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom ( New York: Alfred Knopf, 1947); Harvard Sitkoff, A New Deal for Blacks ( New York: Oxford, 1978); Donald McCoy and Richard T. Reuten , Quest and Response: Minority Rights and the Truman Administration (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1973); and Aldon D. Morris, The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement ( New York: Free Press, 1984). A plethora of works on the modern civil rights movement exist, from Anthony Lewis and The New York Times, Portrait of a Decade ( New York: Random House, 1964) to Robert Weisbrot, Freedom Bound ( New York: Norton, 1990). Two very well-written general studies are: Juan Williams, Eyes on the Prize ( New York: Viking, 1987) and Harvard Sitkoff, The Struggle for Black Equality ( New York: Hill & Wang, 1981). More analytical works are Manning Marable, Race, Reform and Rebellion (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1984) and David R. Goldfield, Black, White and Southern ( Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990). The best collection of essays is: Charles Eagles, ed., The Civil Rights Movement in America (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1986). Two excellent oral histories are: Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer, eds., Voices of Freedom ( New York: Bantam, 1990) and Howell Raines, My Soul Is Rested ( New York: Penguin, 1983).

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