February is traditionally African American History Month and in addition to a display, we plan to soon have
a copy on our shelves of
FREE ALL ALONG by Stephen Drury Smith and Catherine Ellis. This work is based on The Robert Penn Warren
Civil Rights Interviews which were conducted and originally published in the
early 1960s. Amongst the more recognizable names of those interviewed are Martin
Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Andrew Young, Stokely Carmichael, and writers Ralph
Ellison and James Baldwin. The authors provide brief historical
and biographical context for each interviewee. Both this text and the audio archive (provided online by Vanderbilt University) should provide valuable
insight and primary source information for students researching the Civil
Rights Movement and its leaders. For example, students will be able to read
about - or listen to - the voices of those who organized the Greensboro sit-ins,
or those who saw to the physical needs of the Freedom Riders and/or the many who debated the direction
(non-violence vs. more militant Black Power) of the movement.
Stephen Drury Smith
and Catherine Ellis have also collaborated on After the Fall (interviews
and reflections post Sept 11) and on Say It Loud and Say It Plain;
the last two are collections of speeches from the Civil Rights Movement and African
Americans in the Twentieth Century. All of these texts will provide rich resources
as we continue to add more diversity to our collection. If you have a title to
suggest, please let us know.
