The library will be closed on Monday, January 15th in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, so come in this weekend to pick up books to read on your day off! Here are some fiction and nonfiction books you can check out to learn more about the history of the civil rights movement, as well as how King's legacy and struggle endure.
Nonfiction
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Martin Luther King, Jr. : the essential box set : the landmark speeches and sermons of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Martin Luther King, Jr. For the first time ever, twenty-four original recordings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from his iconic "I Have A Dream" speech to his stirring sermon "A Knock At Midnight, " are collected together in this treasured set. His landmark speeches that echoed around the world and the more intimate sermons from the churches where he carried out his ministry are just as moving and meaningful today as they were when the great orator first expressed them. |
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The radical King
by Martin Luther King Features more than 20 works, organized by theme, by the celebrated orator and civil rights champion that highlight his revolutionary vision as a democratic socialist, his opposition to the Vietnam War, his solidarity with the poor and his fight against global imperialism. |
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We've got a job : the 1963 Birmingham Children's March
by Cynthia Levinson We've Got a Job tells the little-known story of the 4,000 black elementary, middle and high school students who voluntarily went to jail in Birmingham, Alabama, in May 1963. Fulfilling Mahatma Gandhi's and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s precept to "fill the jails," the students succeeded in desegregating one of the most racially violent cities in America. The astonishing events surrounding the Children's March are retold here from the perspectives of four of the original participants. |
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Claudette Colvin : twice toward justice
by Phillip M. Hoose Presents the life of the Alabama teenager who played an integral but little-known role in the Montgomery bus strike of 1955-1956, once by refusing to give up a bus seat, and again, by becoming a plaintiff in the landmark civil rights case against the bus company. |
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March. Book one
by John Lewis A first-hand account of the author's lifelong struggle for civil and human rights spans his youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., and the birth of the Nashville Student Movement. |
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Chasing King's killer : the hunt for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassin
by James L. Swanson James Earl Ray and Martin Luther King, Jr. had two very different life journeys -- but their paths fatally collide when Ray assassinates the world-renown civil rights leader. This book provides an inside look into both of their lives, the history of the time, and a blow-by-blow examination of the assassination and its aftermath. |
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Turning 15 on the road to freedom : my story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March
by Lynda Blackmon Lowery A 50th-anniversary tribute shares the story of the youngest person to complete the momentous Selma to Montgomery March, describing her frequent imprisonments for her participation in nonviolent demonstrations and how she felt about her involvement in historic Civil Rights events. |
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The Freedom Summer murders
by Don Mitchell Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Summer murders, a young reader's introduction to the harrowing story traces the events surrounding the KKK lynching of three young civil rights activists who were trying to register African-Americans for the vote. |
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The King years : historic moments in the civil rights movement
by Taylor Branch A succinct and accessible chronicle of key events in the Civil Rights Movement by the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of the trilogy that includes Parting the Waters traces how the Movement evolved from a bus strike to a political and social revolution. |
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Between the world and me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates Told through the author's own evolving understanding of the subject over the course of his life comes a bold and personal investigation into America's racial history and its contemporary echoes. |
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Martin & Malcolm & America : a dream or a nightmare
by James H. Cone This groundbreaking and highly acclaimed work examines the two most influential African-American leaders of this century. While Martin Luther King, Jr., saw America as essentially a dream . . . as yet unfulfilled, Malcolm X viewed America as a realized nightmare. James Cone cuts through superficial assessments of King and Malcolm as polar opposites to reveal two men whose visions are complementary and moving toward convergence. |
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Carry me home : Birmingham, Alabama, the climactic battle of the civil rights revolution
by Diane McWhorter A journalist chronicles the peak of the civil rights movement, focusing on the African-American freedom fighters who stood firm on issues of civil rights and segregation during the movement's eventful climax in Birmingham and the white establishment that opposed them. |
Fiction
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The Watsons go to Birmingham--1963 : a novel
by Christopher Paul Curtis When his parents decide it is time to visit Grandma, ten-year-old Kenny and his siblings, including the "juvenile delinquent" Byron, journey to Alabama during a dark period in American history. Newbery Honor. Coretta Scott King Honor. |
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One crazy summer
by Rita Williams-Garcia In the summer of 1968, after travelling from Brooklyn, New York, to Oakland, California, to spend a month with the mother they barely know, 11-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters arrive to a cold welcome as they discover that their mother, a dedicated poet and printer, is resentful of their intrusion and wants them to attend a nearby Black Panther summer camp. |
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Dear Martin
by Nic Stone Profiled by a racist police officer in spite of his excellent academic achievements and Ivy League acceptance, a disgruntled college youth navigates the prejudices of new classmates and his crush on a white girl by writing a journal to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in the hopes that his iconic role model's teachings will be applicable half a century later. |
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The hate u give
by Angie Thomas Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life. |
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Loving vs. Virginia : a documentary novel of the landmark civil rights case
by Patricia Hruby Powell A tale inspired by the landmark 1955 civil rights case follows the relationship between two young people who challenged period segregation, prejudice and injustice to pursue a relationship at the center of a Supreme Court case that legalized interracial marriage. By the award-winning author of Josephine. |
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How it went down
by Kekla Magoon When sixteen-year-old Tariq Johnson is shot to death, his community is thrown into an uproar because Tariq was black and the shooter, Jack Franklin, is white, and in the aftermath everyone has something to say, but no two accounts of the events agree. |
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X : a novel
by Ilyasah Shabazz Co-written by the best-selling author of Malcolm Little and daughter of Malcolm X, a novel based her father's formative years describes his father's murder, his mother's imprisonment and his challenging effort to pursue an education in law. |
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All American boys
by Jason Reynolds When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend. Told through Rashad and Quinn's alternating viewpoints. |
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Like a fading shadow
by Antonio Muñoz Molina Based on recently declassified FBI files, this novel imagines James Earl Ray’s last days of freedom in Lisbon, where he fled after assassinating Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, evading authorities through Canada and London to await a visa to Angola. |
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We love you, Charlie Freeman
by Kaitlyn Greenidge When the Freeman family participates in a research study in which they live with Charlie, a chimpanzee orphan who can speak sign language, they feel isolated in an all-white community, and discover the truth about the research center's questionable studies. |