Civil Rights: Research Resources

The library has materials to help students research the civil rights movement. Here are a some of the best resources to get started.

General nonfiction books

The Civil Rights Movement by John M. Dunn
Juvenile Nonfiction/J323.1196/Dun
Black and white photos and drawings as well as timelines supplement this brief history.
Find it in the catalog now

The Civil Rights Movement for Kids by Mary C. Turck
Juvenile Nonfiction/J323.1196/Tur
This easy-to-follow history includes art and drama projects for students.
Find it in the catalog now

The Civil Rights Movement in America from 1865 to the Present by Patricia and Frederick McKissack
Juvenile Nonfiction/J323.4/McK
This comprehensive textbook covers 100 years of the struggle.
Find it in the catalog now

A Dream of Freedom: The Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968 by Diane McWhorter
Juvenile Nonfiction/J323.1/McW
This award-winning work highlights the key events of the movement.
Find it in the catalog now

Selected biographies

Bayard Rustin: Behind the Scenes of the Civil Rights Movement by James Haskins
Juvenile Biographies/J323/Rustin
This life story of an energetic organizer working passionately for peaceful change culminates in the 1963 March on Washington.
Find it in the catalog now

Ida B. Wells-Barnett: Powerhouse with a Pen by Catherine A. Welch
Juvenile Biographies/J323/Wells-Barnett
Wells-Barnett was a journalist who helped to organize the NAACP after a friend was lynched.
Find it in the catalog now

Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America
Juvenile Biographies/J796.357/Robinson
Robinson‘s daughter provides details and photographs about her father‘s achievements in baseball, politics, and civil rights.
Find it in the catalog now

The Voice that Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights by Russell Freedman
Juvenile Biographies/J782.1/Anderson
This celebrated artist gave a concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to protest the rules that kept her from performing at Washington‘s finest auditorium.
Find it in the catalog now

Nonfiction books about specific events

Brown v. Board of Education: The Case Against School Segregation by Wayne Anderson
Juvenile Nonfiction/J344.7307/And
Find it in the catalog now

Freedom Rides: Journey for Justice by James Haskins
Juvenile Nonfiction/J323.1/Has
Find it in the catalog now

The March on Washington by James Haskins
Juvenile Nonfiction/J323.119/Has
Find it in the catalog now

The Montgomery Bus Boycott by Frank Walsh
Juvenile Nonfiction/J323.1196/Wal
Find it in the catalog now

Fiction

The Glory Field by Walter Dean Myers
Teen Fiction/Myers
Follow one African American family over 241 years, from Sierra Leone to a special field in South Carolina.
Find it in the catalog now

Mississippi Trial, 1955 by Chris Crowe
Teen Fiction/Crowe
This fictionalized account of the murder of Emmett Till dramatizes the tragedy that sparked the Civil Rights movement.
Find it in the catalog now

The Return of Gabriel by John Armistead
Teen Fiction/Armistead
In 1964, a white boy from Mississippi whose best friend is black is caught in the struggle between civil rights workers and the Ku Klux Klan.
Find it in the catalog now

A Summer of Kings by Han Nolan
Teen Fiction/Nolan
Racial injustice becomes personal when an eighteen-year-old African American accused of murder comes to live with Esther‘s family.
Find it in the catalog now

Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues by Harriette Gillem Robinet
Juvenile Fiction/Rob
A young man and his family struggle as they honor the bus boycott in Montgomery.
Find it in the catalog now

The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
Juvenile Fiction/Cur
When the members of an African American family from Michigan travel to Grandma‘s house in Birmingham during the summer of 1963, they find a slower-paced life but also racial violence.
Find it in the catalog now