By far the most readable of the civil rights histories, filled with fascinating background on the African American church and Martin Luther King's personal makeup, plus riveting storytelling. This book will keep you up at night.
McWhorter grew up in privileged, white Birmingham, and she provides a graphic panorama of both white and black forces that grappled for power there. No book I know so expands the social, economic, and religious canvas. The book is messy but intoxicating.
Marsh combines the skills of a theologian, historian, and storyteller to bring a probing and meditative description of the civil rights movement, its triumphs and failings, up to its impact on today's social justice movements.
Congressman Lewis lived every aspect of the movement: he was beaten several times, arrested more, elected and then deposed as head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, finally entering politics. This memoir is testimony to an incredible era.