African Americans and Civil Rights: From 1619 to the Present (Social Issues in American History Series) - Hardcover

Levine, Michael L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 089774859X ISBN 13: 9780897748599

Publisher: Greenwood, 1996

Synopsis

This well-written narrative, concise but packed with history, chronicles the struggle for African American civil rights. Beginning in 1619 when the first ship carrying Africans arrived in North America and continuing to the present, historian Michael L. Levine gives readers a balanced overview of how U.S. laws have prevented blacks from having the same civil rights as others. The text is accompanied by 65 detailed biographical sketches that describe the roles played by key individuals who worked to advance―or block―the civil rights of African Americans.

About this title

About the Author

Michael L. Levine, PhD, is a freelance editor for Charles Scribner's Reference Books, Macmillan, Inc., where he is editor for Encyclopedia of American Legislative History, Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, and Encyclopedia of Latin American History. Previously, he was writer, researcher, and press coordinator for the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the National Organization of Black Trade Union Activists. Before that, he was editor-in-chief for National Productivity, a quarterly journal presenting new concepts, practical proposals, and case studies pertaining to the improvement of organizational productivity. He has also been a freelance writer and editor for Travel and Leisure magazine and other publications.

Reviews

Moving in ten chapters from West Africa and the slave trade to progress and setbacks since 1969, Levine surveys the special and inferior status allotted people of full or partial African descent in the United States from Colonial times. A former researcher at the black trade unionists' A. Philip Randolph Institute, Levine links blacks' role in the economy to their legal and political status. His work as a freelance reference book editor of several volumes, including the Encyclopedia of American Legislative History, strengthens the text; various sections provide biographies, a chronology, a glossary, and further reading, which aid understanding of context and detail. While this work is suitable for general readers, Mary Frances Berry's Black Resistance/White Law: A History of Constitutional Racism in America (A. Lane, 1994) and Donald Nieman's Promises To Keep: African-Americans and the Constitutional Order, 1776 to the Present (Oxford Univ., 1991) remain better choices for serious students.?Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Greenwood
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 089774859X
• ISBN 13: 9780897748599
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 344