New Nonfiction

The selection I've selected for this blog include new nonfiction titles featuring historical events and Civil Rights era history.

Freedom Libraries: The Untold Story of Libraries for African Americans in the South is by Mike Selby. When the civil rights movement exploded across the United States, the media gave the world a glimpse of racial violence and stalwart determination. While most saw the struggle to simply order a cheeseburger, ride a bus, or use a clean water fountain, there was a virtually unheard-of struggle lurking in the background—the right to read. Several American states strictly enforced racial segregation, though it was technically illegal and public libraries were not immune to these racist policies. Though libraries were desegregated on paper, there were no cards given to African Americans, no books for them to read, and no furniture for them to use. These conditions gave rise to the Freedom Libraries—more than eighty parallel libraries that appeared in the Deep South and were staffed by civil rights voter registration workers. Terror, bombings, and even murder from racist groups would be visited upon these Freedom Libraries, however, they persevered and managed to forever change libraries and librarianship. 

Author Jia Lynn Yang discusses American immigration between 1924 and 1965 in One Mighty and Irresistible Tide. In 1924, Congress instituted a system of ethnic quotas so strict that it slowed large-scale immigration down to a trickle for decades. Arrivals from southern and eastern Europe as well as almost all of Asia were banned. The author recounts how lawmakers, activists, and presidents from Harry Truman to Lyndon Johnson worked to abolish the 1924 law. Even through a world war, a refugee crisis after the Holocaust, and the Red Scare, a coalition of lawmakers and activists worked to help Jewish, Irish, and Japanese immigrants enter America. In 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act finally opened the door to migrants at levels never seen before—and changing this country in the process. 

Peniel E. Joseph compares and contrasts the lives and works of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr in The Sword and The Shield. These two civil rights leaders represent contrasting ideals: self-defense vs. nonviolence, black power vs. civil rights. While the nonviolent direct action is remembered as an unassailable part of American history, the movement’s militancy is either maligned or erased. The author upends these misconceptions and paints a nuanced portrait of two men who—in spite of different family histories, religious affiliations, and class backgrounds—inspired one another. Malcolm’s push to connect pan-Africanism to an international human rights agenda mirrored the “beloved community” that King articulated in his speech at the March on Washington. Similarly, the anti-war and anti-poverty campaigns of King’s final years echoed Malcolm’s anti-colonialist ideals. So, Martin Luther King, Jr. was more revolutionary and Malcolm X more pragmatic than we have been taught. 

The Rise of the G.I. Army: 1940-1941 by Paul Dickson tell the story of how America forged a powerful army before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, there was still a strong air of isolationism that existed in the U.S. The US Army ranked 17th in the world—behind Portugal—and was totally unprepared to defend the country, much less engage forces in Europe and the East. Yet, less than a year after Pearl Harbor, the American Army landed in North Africa and went on to lead the campaign that would defeat the Nazis. This is the story of how America’s military went from a disparate collection of camps with obsolete weapons to a well-trained and spirited army ten times its prior size in just under two years. From the selection of George C. Marshall to be the Army chief of staff, to the peacetime draft of 1940 and the massive (and unprecedented) military maneuvers in Tennessee, Louisiana, and the Carolinas in 1941, the Army was forged and led by dynamic men—Eisenhower, Patton, Stilwell, and Bradley. 

Steeped in the Blood of Racism: Black Power, Law and Order, and the 1970 Shootings at Jackson State College is by Nancy K. Bristow. Just after midnight on May 15, 1970, white members of the Jackson city police and the Mississippi Highway Patrol opened fire on students in front of a women’s dorm at Jackson State College—a historically black college. Less than a minute later, two young people were dead and another twelve were injured. Drawing on new interviews and sources, the author lays out what happened in Jackson and the role racism played in the shootings and its aftermath. Jackson State was a state school led by an entirely white Board of Trustees and was known as a conservative campus. When protests broke out over the proceeding decade, the activists were expelled. By 1970, however, students were once again responding to the move for civil rights for the African American community. It was this changing campus that law enforcement attacked. In the aftermath, victims and survivors struggled to find justice and a place in public memory. Despite multiple investigative commissions, two grand juries, and a civil suit, no officers were charged, no restitution was paid, and no apologies were offered. It seems that Jackson State was overshadowed by the shooting of white students at Kent State in Ohio just ten days earlier. The author endeavors to bring this tragic shooting once again into the spotlight.