After the death of Martin Luther King Jr., Alabama produced an impressive number of African American self-taught artists whose work particularly focused on the Civil Rights Movement and on aspects of history that led to it. This happened, in part, because the action was right on their doorsteps: Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Selma March, the murder of four little girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. It was a spontaneous response to an emerging opportunity, and it occurred all over the South. History Refused to Die documents this phenomenon by highlighting the men and women whose artistic accomplishments deserve to be recognized by American art history, identifying six various themes that run through the works of almost all of these Alabama artists: Slavery, Agricultural and Industrial Alabama, The African-American Woman, The Civil Rights Era, Surviving Modern Times, and Autobiography and Commemoration. Featuring the work of fourteen African American artists from Alabama, including Thornton Dial, Lonnie Holley, Joe Minter, Ronald Lockett, Mose Tolliver, and several quilters from Gee's Bend, Alabama, this volume provides insight into black Alabama and African American visual expression through the presentation and analysis of more than 100 works of art.

History Refused to Die: The Enduring Legacy of African American Art in Alabama

Arts & Photography

Williams, Horace Randall

Wilkin, Karen

Holland, Sharon

History & Criticism

Tinwood Books

This Day in Civil Rights History, by renowned civil-rights activist Randall Williams, is a day-by-day survey of the people, places, and events that impacted the civil rights movement and shaped the future of the United States. Flip to any date and you’ll find fascinating, informative facts and anecdotes: February 1, 1960 Four African-American college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, entered the local Woolworth’s department store, sat down at the lunch counter, and demanded to be served. This courageous act launched the student sit-in movement throughout the region. March 2, 1955 Nine months before the historic arrest of Rosa Parks, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin was arrested for violating the segregation laws on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus. September 30, 1962 James Meredith became the first African-American student allowed to enroll at the University of Mississippi. November 4, 1960 The U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Gomillion v. Lightfoot, establishing an important precedent in the voting rights of African-American citizens.

This Day in Civil Rights History (This Day in History)

History

Beard, Ben

Americas

Clerisy Press, Emmis Books

A unique catalog of historic civil rights events, This Day in Civil Rights History details the struggles, sacrifices, and triumphs on the road to equal rights for all U.S. citizens. From the Quakers’ 17th-century antislavery resolution, to slave uprisings during the Civil War, to the infamous Orangeburg Massacre in 1968, and beyond, authors Horace Randall Williams and Ben Beard present a vivid collection of 366 events―one for every day of the year plus Leap Day―chronicling African Americans’ battle for human dignity and self-determination.Every day of the year has witnessed significant events in the struggle for civil rights. This Day in Civil Rights History is an illuminating collection of these cultural turning points.

This Day in Civil Rights History

Africa

NewSouth Books

The personal account of the triumph of a Southern black woman, Mrs. Johnnie Carr who overcame poverty, limited education, and racism to become a wife, mother, and civic leader. Johnnie also reveals the civil rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama. A childhood friend of Rosa Parks, as an adult she inspired Mrs. Parks to join the NAACP. Since 1968, Mrs. Carr has been president of the group which organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Her connection to Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and E.D. Nixon gives her a unique opportunity to offer insights and observations.

Johnnie: The Life of Johnnie Rebecca Carr

Children's Books

Biographies

A Fast Walk Through a Long History is a brisk but richly informative retelling of our civil rights history, originally prepared for inclusion in History Refused to Die: The Enduring Legacy of the African American Art of Alabama (Tinwood Books, 2015). In just 8,000 words, the essay presents a powerful telescopic view of the legacies of slavery and segregation, which the author traces back to back to the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. These first African Americans―literally―may have had status somewhat similar to European indentured servants already in the colonies, but soon the Africans’ skin color and the greed for cheap labor would consign them and their descendants to chattel slavery until the end of the Civil War. Post-war Reconstruction brought a brief moment of hope for equality, but these hopes were dashed by white supremacist terrorism abetted by politics and economics. Then followed a century of Jim Crow segregation, which was finally overcome―legally at least―in the 1950s and 1960s. The victories of civil rights and voting rights were the result of decades of black-led organizing, resistance, legal actions, and activism in communities across the nation but especially in the Deep South states. Alabama was at the center of this movement from 1955 to 1975. No brief essay can provide a comprehensive understanding of the African American freedom struggle, but A Fast Walk Through a Long History offers its readers a helpful perspective on the interconnectedness of the signal events, which continue to shape our national identity even today.

A Fast Walk Through a Long History: A Summary of the American Civil Rights Struggle from 1619 in Jamestown to 1965 in Selma

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Books by Williams, Horace Randall