New York: St Martin's, (2018). First edition - "A poetic and powerful memoir about what it means to be a Black woman in Americaand the co-founding of a movement that demands justice for all in the land of the free.. . Deliberately and ruthlessly targeted by a criminal justice system serving a white privilege agenda, Black people are subjected to unjustifiable racial profiling and police brutality. In 2013, when Trayvon Martins killer went free, Patrisses outrage led her to co-found Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. . . an empowering account of survival, strength and resilience and a call to action to change the culture that declares innocent Black life expendable." Foreword by Angela Davis. With an announced first edition of 250,000 copies, this advance issue is much harder to find than the trade edition. Publisher's material laid in. xiv, 257 pp.

Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970. dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - Both a history and critique of the Civil Rights Movement by one of its younger members (the rear panel mentions that Louis's activist work began when she was only 14, and she was just 24 at time of publication), this presents a subjective, insider's view of the Civil Rights Movement, focusing on the experiences and dynamics of the activists themselves. It covers the summer of 1963 with its police repression and violence as a key turning point, gives an overview of organizations like organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and CORE, and attribute the decline in the movement to fights among the various factions, the Watts riots and the rise of the Black Power movement, and the anti-poverty programs. Illustrated with photographs. INSCRIBED on the front endpaper "for Sylvia without whom..." and dated in the year of publication (Sylvia Miller is cited in the acknowledgments as one of those who gave her advice and encouragement). Also includes several appendices - including one which is an in-depth analysis of the 1965 Civil Rights Act, another on CORE's rules, a bibliography and more. In addition to being an activist and an author, Louis was a collector of material about the Civil Rights movement and in 1971 she donated her extensive collection to UCLA. xi, 462 pp.

Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, (1989) dj. Hardcover first edition - An account which focuses on how Young, the executive director of the National Urban League from 1961 to 1971, bridged the worlds of race and power. A "solidly researched, clearly written biography [which] argues that Young served an often overlooked and thankless role, carrying the message of the movement to the U.S. power elite. While the author focuses on Young as a complete individual, an effort is made to highlight the necessity of his role in the movement, the relish and vigor with which he played that role, and the recognition of other major civil rights leaders of the importance of that role." (Joseph Stewart Jr., University of Texas). Illustrated with photographs. Includes extensive notes, sources, index. xv, 286 pp. ISBN: 0-69104757X.

Philadelphia: Christian Education Press, (1954). A book by this pioneering African-American clergyman and humanitarian, born in poverty in Tennessee but who became an influential leader in the United States and also in advocating independence for African nations. This book focuses on his meetings with leaders in Africa, East Germany and Asia, and the twin revolutions of nationalism and communism (while never a Communist, he was called up before the House Committee on Un-American Activities to refute suspicions that he harbored communist sympathies, suspicions based in part on comments he made in this book) After his tour of Africa, he suggested the church focus on practical aid for the continent, by sending doctors, engineers and other professionals, rather than missionaries. He is best known as the founder of Operation Crossroads Africa (OCA), a cross-cultural exchange program considered a forerunner of the Peace Corps.He also organized Harlem's Morningside Community Center, cofounded the African Academy of Arts and Research, and much more. INSCRIBED on the front endpaper. 127 pp.

Boulder, CO : Westview Press, (2000) dj. SIGNED hardcover - Jackson was a civil rights and communist activist, a social worker and co-founder (along with Louis Burnham, Jack O'Dell from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and writer Lorraine Hansberry) and the managing editor of Freedomways for its entire history from 1961 to 1986. This quarterly magazine "chronicled the struggle for racial justice in the U.S. It featured contributions by many of the luminaries of black literature, art, and politics, including three Nobel Prize laureates: Martin Luther King Jr., Pablo Neruda, and Derek Walcott. Other contributors included Alice Walker, James Baldwin, W. E. B. DuBois, Jomo Kenyatta, C. L. R. James, and common black folk. The collection features poetry, essays, speeches, articles. There are memoirs of a Birmingham coal miner, tributes to Paul Robeson, and reflections of black feminists, labor organizers, and prisoners. The anthology begins with articles actually written in the 1940s and 1950s, which provide historical context for the journal itself, followed by the pieces, organized topically, e.g., the Southern movement, international solidarity, the movement in the North, and art and activism. This comprehensive collection reflects the global nature of the struggle for equality and the longing for racial justice over an important 25-year period." (Booklist/Vanessa Bush). INSCRIBED by Esther Cooper Jackson on the front endpaper, and dated June 9, 2000, and scarce thus. Foreword by Julian Bond and as afterword by David Levering Lewis. A title in the Interventions: Theory and Contemporary Politics series. Illustrated with photographs. xxx, 382 pp. ISBN: 0-813367697.

Franklin, TN: Hillsboro Press, (1997) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - After serving overseas during World War II, returning Black soldiers chafed at the restriction of segregation. "On February 25, 1946, in Columbia, Tennessee, a minor incident between a while clerk and a black Navy veteran and his mother escalated into the first race riot in the United States after World War II. The riot prompted the involvement of individuals and organizations such as Thurgood Marshall, Eleanor Roosevelt, the Communist Party, the NAACP, and the Department of Justice. Legal resolution of the Columbia riot at Mink Slide resulted in death, destruction, and surprising trial verdicts." Illustrated with photographs. SIGNED by the author (who grew up in the town of Columbia) on the half title page. Review copy with publisher's letter laid in. Extensive notes, bibliography, index. 180 pp. Map endpapers. ISBN: 1-577360311.

New York: Dial Press, 1971. dj. Hardcover first edition - A memoir by one of the most influential, controversial, and complex Black politicians of the first half of the 20th century, one which details his childhood in Harlem, his education at an all-white college, his years spent preaching the gospel, and his rise to political fame, as a flamboyant black congressman, a civil-rights activist who was also notorious for his private life. "As the congressman from Harlem, he denounced racist southern colleagues and introduced the 'Powell Amendment' to deny federal funds to projects or organizations that practiced discrimination. In 1960, he became chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, then the strongest position ever held by a black in the US government - and he became a thorn in the side of ally and foe alike. He was a maverick seldom bound by party, duty, or conventional morality, although in this book, he barely mentions the charges of corruption that led to his exclusion from Congress. Nor does he discuss his opposition to Bayard Rustin, as depicted in the recent film. Illustrated with photographs. Index. x, 260 pp. Dust jacket by Wendell Minor.

New York: Simon & Schuster, (2020) dj. Hardcover first edition - An investigative reporter's account of his efforts to bring the Klansmen who were responsible for some of the most notorious murders of the civil rights movement to account. On June 21, 1964, more than twenty Klansmen murdered three civil rights workers - James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. The killings, in what would become known as the Mississippi Burning case, were among the most brazen acts of violence during the civil rights movement. And even though the killers identities, including the sheriffs deputy, were an open secret, no one was charged with murder in the months and years that followed. 41 years later the mastermind was brought to trial and finally convicted. In addition, Mitchell worked on building up evidence in the assassination of Medgar Evers, the firebombing of Vernon Dahmer, and the 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham. Notes, selected bibliography, index. 421 pp. ISBN: 978-1451645132.

New York: Harper & Row, (1966) dj. Hardcover first edition - "The Spiritual Odyssey that Ended in an Act of Violence in the Streets of Selma, Alabama and Galvanized the Conscience of a Nation." James Reeb was a white minister, working for social justice in the Roxbury ghetto of Boston, when he went to Selma, Alabama in response to Martin Luther King's call for clergy of all denominations to make a stand for civil rights. Two days later, leaving a restaurant with two fellow Unitarian ministers, he was brutally murdered. The author of this biography based it on his extensive research and interviews with those who knew Reeb, and also his own personal experience of working with Reeb in the 5 years before his death. Illustrated with photographs. Index. 242 pp.

New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, (2009). First edition - An account written for young adults of the role of teenager Claudette Colvin in sparking the Montgomery bus boycott - " On March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her classmates and dismissed by community leaders. Undaunted, a year later she dared to challenge segregation again as a key plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the landmark case that struck down the segregation laws of Montgomery and swept away the legal underpinnings of the Jim Crow South. Based on extensive interviews with Claudette Colvin and many others, [this is the] first in-depth account of an important yet largely unknown civil rights figure, weaving her dramatic story into the fabric of the historic Montgomery bus boycott and court case that would change the course of American history." Winner of the 2009 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. a 2010 Newbery Honor Book, and more. Illustrated throughout with photographs. Bibliography, notes. Slightly oversized square format. 122 pp.