|
|
|
1.
|
|
Award-winning civil rights historian Ray Arsenault describes the dramatic story behind Marian Anderson’s concert at the Lincoln Memorial—an early milestone in civil rights history—on the seventieth anniversary of her performance. On Easter Sunday 1939, the brilliant vocalist Marian Anderson sang before a throng of seventy-five thousand at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington—an electrifying moment and an underappreciated milestone in civil rights history. Though she was at the peak of a dazzling career, Anderson had been barred from performing at the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall because she was black. When Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR over the incident and took up Anderson’s cause, however, it became a national issue. Like a female Jackie Robinson—but several years before his breakthrough—Anderson rose to a pressure-filled and politically charged occasion with dignity and courage, and struck a vital blow for civil rights. In the 1963 March on Washington, Martin Luther King would follow, literally, in Anderson’s footsteps. T his tightly focused, richly textured narrative by acclaimed historian Raymond Arsenault captures the struggle for racial equality in 1930s America, the quiet heroism of Marian Anderson, and a moment that inspired blacks and whites alike. Raymond Arsenault is the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. He is the author of Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, which was named an Editor’s Choice by the New York Times and one of the Best Books of 2006 by the Washington Post, and won the 2006 Owsley Prize of the Southern Historical Association as the best work in Southern history. On Easter Sunday 1939, the brilliant vocalist Marian Anderson sang before a throng of seventy-five thousand at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington—an underappreciated milestone in civil rights history. Though she was at the peak of a dazzling career, Anderson had been barred from performing at the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall because she was black. When Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR over the incident and took up Anderson’s cause, however, it became a national issue. Like a female Jackie Robinson—but several years before his breakthrough—Anderson rose to a pressure-filled and politically charged occasion with dignity and courage, and struck a vital blow for civil rights.
In the 1963 March on Washington, Martin Luther King would follow, literally, in Anderson’s footsteps. This tightly focused, richly textured narrative by acclaimed historian Raymond Arsenault captures the struggle for racial equality in 1930s America, the quiet heroism of Marian Anderson, and a moment that inspired blacks and whites alike. "A tightly focused look at the political and cultural events that led up to and came after [Anderson's] famous 1939 concert. It’s a story that’s well worth retelling. . . . [Arsenault] has done his research."—Dwight Garner, The New York Times "A notable addition to the historical record . . . Arsenault's book is a timely reminder of the worm of history turning once more. We have only just witnessed another triumphant procession on the Washington Mall, where another exemplary African-American, himself the product of another David and Delia, was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States—something Anderson would likely have been hard-pressed to imagine taking place."—Boston Globe "In this moment of change and hope, Raymond Arsenault has given us the perfect book for contemplation and activism. Deeply researched, vividly written, sparkling and dramatic, The Sound of Freedom is more than a biography of Marian Anderson, her struggles and triumphs over time. It is a call to reconsider the enduring legacies of our segregated heritage, our culture of disrespect. From Marian Anderson's Lincoln Memorial concert that awakened the country to the cruelties and deprivations of apartheid America, every stunning detail of this bold and heartening book calls upon us to continue the still incomplete fight for liberty and justice for all."—Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt
"Outstanding . . . provides critical perspective on [Anderson’s] most significant achievement."—Ron Wynn, BookPage "[Arsenault] excels at contextualizing the concert, probing the ways in which Jim Crow laws and racial prejudices permeated all aspects of African-American life."—Kirkus Reviews ...
|
|
2.
|
|
They were black and white, young and old, men and women. In the spring and summer of 1961, they put their lives on the line, riding buses through the American South to challenge segregation in interstate transport. Their story is one of the most celebrated episodes of the civil rights movement, yet a full-length history has never been written until now. In these pages, acclaimed historian Raymond Arsenault provides a gripping account of six pivotal months that jolted the consciousness of America.
The Freedom Riders were greeted with hostility, fear, and violence. They were jailed and beaten, their buses stoned and firebombed. In Alabama, police stood idly by as racist thugs battered them. When Martin Luther King met the Riders in Montgomery, a raging mob besieged them in a church. Arsenault recreates these moments with heart-stopping immediacy. His tightly braided narrative reaches from the White House--where the Kennedys were just awakening to the moral power of the civil rights struggle--to the cells of Mississippi's infamous Parchman Prison, where Riders tormented their jailers with rousing freedom anthems. Along the way, he offers vivid portraits of dynamic figures such as James Farmer, Diane Nash, John Lewis, and Fred Shuttlesworth, recapturing the drama of an improbable, almost unbelievable saga of heroic sacrifice and unexpected triumph.
The Riders were widely criticized as reckless provocateurs, or "outside agitators." But indelible images of their courage, broadcast to the world by a newly awakened press, galvanized the movement for racial justice across the nation. Freedom Riders is a stunning achievement, a masterpiece of storytelling that will stand alongside the finest works on the history of civil rights....
|
|
