American Democracy and the Promise of Justice

Bibliography

Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power. Random House, 2012. Caro’s five volume biography of Johnson is exhaustive and rife with details about the role Kennedy and Johnson played in the civil rights movement. The Passage of Power is particularly helpful in understanding precisely how significant Johnson’s role was in securing the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.

Cone, James. Martin and Malcolm and America: A Dream or a Nightmare? 4^th ed., Orbis Books, 2017. Cone’s book forms the backbone for this curriculum unit. He weaves an elucidating narrative of the lives of Martin King and Malcolm X, how they were similar, how they differed, and how they were more alike than many might think.

Hine, Darlene Clark, William C. Hine and Stanley Harrold. African Americans: A Concise History 4^th ed. Pearson, 2012. A useful primer on African American history, and specifically helpful in teaching this unit for its 21^st chapter on the civil rights movement.

Irons, Peter. A People’s History of the Supreme Court. Penguin Books, 2006. Informative and useful beyond the scope of this unit, this book is nonetheless a great retelling of many of the most significant Supreme Court cases in history. The chapters on Brown v. Board give a detailed rendition of the events surrounding the case.

Klarman, Michael J. Unfinished Business: Racial Equality in American History. Oxford University Press, 2007. Klarman delivers a concise primer on the history of racial [in]equality in America. The later chapters in particular served as the basis for much of this unit.

Robinson, Dean E. Black Nationalism in American Politics and Thought. Cambridge University Press, 2001. It initially proved difficult to find a focused history of black nationalism in America, but Robinson’s book provided the solution to that issue. A detailed, yet concise history of black nationalist ideology and its development throughout American history, this book helps to fill in the details on figures like Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam.