"In the spring and summer of 1961, several hundred Americans - blacks and whites, men and women - converged on Jackson, Mississippi, to challenge state segregation laws. The Freedom Riders, as they came to be known, were determined to open up the South to civil rights. Over 300 people were arrested and convicted of the charge "breach of the peace."" "The name, mug shot, and other personal details of each Freedom Rider arrested were duly recorded and saved by agents of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, an investigative agency whose purpose was to "perform any and all acts deemed necessary and proper to protect the sovereignty of the state of Mississippi." By carefully recording names and preserving the mug shots, the Commission inadvertently created a testament to these heroes of the civil rights movement. That testament is collected here. Over eighty contemporary portraits stand alongside the original mug shots and interviews with former Freedom Riders."--BOOK JACKET.

"From the 1920s on, some of the best African American minds - W. E. B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Benjamin Mays, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Mary McLeod Bethune, Charles S. Johnson, and others - argued tirelessly about the churches' responsibility in the quest for racial justice. Could they be a liberal force, or would they be a constraint on progress? There was no single, unified black church but rather many churches marked by enormous intellectual, theological, and political differences and independence. Yet, in the face of discrimination and poverty, churches were called upon again and again to come together as savior institutions for black communities." "The tension between faith and political activism in black churches testifies to the difficult and unpredictable project of coupling religion and politics in the twentieth century. By retrieving the people, the polemics, and the force of the spiritual that animated African American political life, Savage has dramatically demonstrated the challenge to all religious institutions seeking political change in our time."--BOOK JACKET.

"More than two decades after his death, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s ideas - his call for racial equality, his faith in the ultimate triumph of justice, and his insistence on the power of nonviolent struggle to bring about a major transformation of American society - are as vital and timely as ever. The wealth of his writings, both published and unpublished, that constitute his intellectual legacy are now preserved in this authoritative, chronologically arranged, multivolume edition. Faithfully transcribing the texts of his letters, speeches, sermons, student papers, and articles, this edition has no equal." "Volume II begins with King's doctoral work at Boston University and ends with his first year as pastor of the historic Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. It includes papers from his graduate courses and a fully annotated text of his dissertation. There is correspondence with people King knew in his years before graduate school and a transcription of the first known recording of a King sermon. We learn, too, of King's marriage to Coretta Scott." "Accepting the call to serve Dexter, King followed the church's tradition of socially active pastors by becoming involved in voter registration and other issues of social justice. In Montgomery he completed his doctoral work, and he and Coretta Scott began their married life." "King's early papers document the formative experiences of a man whose life and teachings have had a profound influence not only on Americans but on people of all nations."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

"As legal counsel and deputy attorney general under Bobby Kennedy and then attorney general and under secretary of state for Lyndon Johnson, Nicholas deB. Katzenbach found himself at the center of the defining issues of the 1960s: the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. In this engaging memoir, he treats readers to a ringside seat for episodes including his confrontation with segregationist governor George C. Wallace over the integration of the University of Alabama as well as his successful efforts to steer the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Bill through Congress. The lively, intimate narrative then follows Katzenbach's transition to LBJ's State Department, where he and other members of the administration came to realize the devastating costs of the Vietnam War." "Some of It Was Fun is as much a fresh and candid perspective on a decade that continues to captivate Americans as it is a memoir of one man's eight years in Washington. Yet one of the book's greatest revelations is the voice of a natural storyteller. Winningly self-deprecating and charmingly matter-of-fact, Katzenbach depicts moments of intense drama with compassion, and his assessments of the strengths and shortcomings of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations are measured and discerning. At the heart of this story is the belief shared by Katzenbach and his colleagues that they could truly change the world. Stirring, funny, and, above all, deeply relevant, Some of It Was Fun challenges Americans to once again believe this of themselves."--BOOK JACKET.