The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954-68

I saw Alan Parker's excellent movie Mississippi Burning earlier this year and I wanted to know about the civil rights movement and this book, now well over ten years old, creates a vivid picture as the movie did. Some of the news photos are now icons of photojournalism, in particular the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama demonstrations but others, selected by Kasher, are equally as compelling and combined with his text and extended captions to the photos gave me an appreciation of the people and place involved . The book is well designed and printed and the photos really do give credence to the words as the story unfolds. The back of the book has a timeline, useful bibliography and index. As a pictorial record of this period in American history it couldn't be better. ***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.

I am a librarian who has utilized this photographic history for many years as a resource book with middle school students. The text is clear and concise; the photographs speak volumes.

this book is amazing! i'm just beginning to learn about this part of american history, and i cannot say how much closer to my heart it has been to see the faces of the people who gave their lives for freedom.

This book was singularly instrumental in putting me deep into the heart of the Civil Rights Movement. Being born in the early sixties, I was not old enough to have seen the daily television and newspaper images of what was happening to an oppressed segment of people. This book fills that void powerfully. Going through page by page, Steven Kasher's fine writing style captures the series of events, which are by turns riveting and disturbing. It constantly dawns on one that these horrifying things happened at a not-so-distant time, in the middle of the 20th century. One expects to read of these crimes against humanity in the dark ages - and it is a sad, disquieting reminder that times change slowly. Anyone who is interested in a major chunk of American history should invest in this book. Undoubtedly, as well it would serve as an excellent high school textbook, because it is amply illustrated and written with straightforward clarity, and therefore would make a much more lasting impression on young students than a pale discourse summed tidily up in a dull history book. I thank Kasher for researching, writing and providing this invaluable book; I am all the wiser, albeit the sadder, for having read it.