Historical Dictionary of the Civil Rights Movement

The fiftieth anniversary of many major milestones in what is commonly called the African-American Civil Rights Movement was celebrated in 2013. Fifty years removed from the Birmingham campaign, the assassination of Medgar Evers, and the March on Washington and it is clear that the sacrifices borne by those generations in that decade were not in vain. Monuments, museums, and exhibitions across the world honor the men and women of the Movement and testify to their immeasurable role in redefining the United States.

The second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Civil Rights Movement is a guide to the history of the African-American struggle for equal rights in the United States. The history of this period is covered in a detailed chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, significant legal cases, local struggles, forgotten heroes, and prominent women in the Movement. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Civil Rights Movement.

Christopher M. Richardson has worked for two major international law firms as an employment and labor attorney in North Carolina and Georgia. As an attorney, Richardson litigated cases in federal and state courts and before administrative agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) involving alleged discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful discharge. Further, he provided counsel and worked directly with clients regarding a wide variety of employment matters, including issues arising under Title VII Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination Employment Act (ADEA), the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act. Currently, He currently works as a Diplomat for the U.S. Department of State.

Ralph E. Luker has held faculty appointments in history and religion at Allegheny College, Antioch College, Lincoln University, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and Morehouse College. He is the author of The Social Gospel in Black and White: American Racial Reform, 1885–1912, which won the Kenneth Scott Latourette Prize and was named an Outstanding Book of 1991 by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights. His work on Volumes I and II of The Papers of Martin Luther King was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Luker’s articles have appeared in American Quarterly, Church History, the Journal of American History, the Journal of Negro History, the New England Quarterly, Slavery and Abolition, the South Atlantic Quarterly, Southern Studies, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. He is the author of the first edition of Historical Dictionary of the Civil Rights Movement (Scarecrow Press, 1996).