MY SOUL IS A WITNESS: A CHRONOLOGY OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ERA, 1954-1965

A powerful and inspiring record of one of the most significant periods in America's history, which presents the full historic scope of the hard-fought battle for civil rights.

From the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, in which legal segregation in public schools was declared unconstitutional, to the Nashville sit-ins organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and from the Freedom Rides to the March on Washington, to the subsequent passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965-and covering everything in between-My Soul Is a Witness is the first comprehensive chronology of the civil rights era in America.

This unique chronology extends the examination of civil rights activities beyond the South to include the North, Midwest, and Far West. Although Martin Luther King, Jr., was a towering figure during the era, the authors shift the focus to the thousands of people, places, and events that encompassed the Civil Rights movement. Each entry is based on information found in articles and reports published in three newspaper and periodical sources: The New York Times, Jet Magazine, and the Southern School News. Supplementing the basic chronology are longer features that explore larger topics in more depth and highlight issues well-known at the time but unknown today by scholars and the general public.

Bettye Collier-Thomas is professor of American history at Temple University. Her scholarship includes American social and cultural history, African American women's history, religion, civil rights, and electoral politics. Dr. Collier-Thomas is the author of numerous award-winning books. Her most recent, Jesus, Jobs, and Justice: African American Women and Religion, was reviewed and cited in the New York Times as an Editor's Choice, won a National Women's Political Caucus's EMMA award for excellence in elevating the civil discourse on issues affecting women, and received awards from the Organization of American Historians and the Association of Black Women Historians. Her previous award-winning books include Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement (as coeditor);Daughters of Thunder: Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons; A Treasury of African American Christmas Stories (editor); African American Women and the Vote (co-editor); and My Soul Is A Witness (co-author). She has received multiple fellowships and grants from the Lilly Endowment, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Humanities Center, and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.