TEAR DOWN THE WALLS: A History of the American Civil Rights Movement

The historical struggle, the modern Movement--the fight for equal rights for Negroes in the crucial areas of education, housing, employment, voter registration, use of public facilities. More than half covers the pre-1954 period of sporadic and usually shortlived achievement: David Walker's Appeal, an 1828 Rap-ping; Elizabeth Jennings, a proto-Rosa Parks (1854) who first integrated horse cars; Northern use of Negro troops in the Civil War; the Sweets barricading their home as defense against (1925) snipers; the integration of troops in the Korean War. The Supreme Court reversal of Plessy vs. Ferguson is seen as a major turning point and a point of origin; thereafter, the efforts (on all sides) become stronger as King's nonviolence takes the lead. As up-to-date as black power and the President's crime commission report, a penetrating examination and a worthy companion to Goldston's The Negro Revolution, (p. 471, J-177) which traces the protest more completely up to 1950.