After decades of scholarship on the civil rights movement at the local level, the insights of bottom-up movement history remain essentially invisible in the accepted narrative of the movement and peripheral to debates on how to research, document, and teach about the movement. This collection of original works refocuses attention on this bottom-up history and compels a rethinking of what and who we think is central to the movement. The essays examine such locales as Sunflower County, Mississippi; Memphis, Tennessee; and Wilson, North Carolina; and engage such issues as nonviolence and self-defense, the implications of focusing on women in the movement, and struggles for freedom beyond voting rights and school desegregation. Events and incidents discussed range from the movement's heyday to the present and include the Poor People's Campaign mule train to Washington, D.C., the popular response to the deaths of Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King, and political cartoons addressing Barack Obama's presidential campaign. The kinds of scholarship represented here--which draw on oral history and activist insights (along with traditional sources) and which bring the specificity of time and place into dialogue with broad themes and a national context--are crucial as we continue to foster scholarly debates, evaluate newer conceptual frameworks, and replace the superficial narrative that persists in the popular imagination.

A sharecropper, a warrior, and a truth-telling prophet, Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977) stands as a powerful symbol not only of the 1960s black freedom movement, but also of the enduring human struggle against oppression. A Voice That Could Stir an Army is a rhetorical biography that tells the story of Hamer's life by focusing on how she employed symbols—images, words, and even material objects such as the ballot, food, and clothing—to construct persuasive public personae, to influence audiences, and to effect social change. Drawing upon dozens of newly recovered Hamer texts and recent interviews with Hamer's friends, family, and fellow activists, Maegan Parker Brooks moves chronologically through Hamer's life. Brooks recounts Hamer's early influences, her intersection with the black freedom movement, and her rise to prominence at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Brooks also considers Hamer's lesser-known contributions to the fight against poverty and to feminist politics before analyzing how Hamer is remembered posthumously. The book concludes by emphasizing what remains rhetorical about Hamer's biography, using the 2012 statue and museum dedication in Hamer's hometown of Ruleville, Mississippi, to examine the larger social, political, and historiographical implications of her legacy. The sustained consideration of Hamer's wide-ranging use of symbols and the reconstruction of her legacy provided within the pages of A Voice That Could Stir an Army enrich understanding of this key historical figure. This book also demonstrates how rhetorical analysis complements historical reconstruction to explain the dynamics of how social movements actually operate.

In 1947 John Hope Franklin, then a professor of history at North Carolina College for Negroes, wrote From Slavery to Freedom. Now in its eighth edition, that book, which redefined our understanding of American history, remains the preeminent record of the African American experience. With it and a dozen other books, Franklin has been established as the intellectual father of black studies. Tributes to John Hope Franklin focuses on this esteemed scholar's academic achievements, his humanitarian contributions, and his extraordinary legacy. This collection of comments by Franklin's students, colleagues, family, and friends captures the man and his work for future generations. Tributes offered by Franklin's admirers, Walter B. Hill Jr., David Levering Lewis, Alfred A. Moss Jr., Darlene Clark Hine, Loren Schweninger, Daryl Michael Scott, George M. Fredrickson, Mary Frances Berry, and many others, attest to Franklin's commitment to his intellectual pursuits, to public service, and, most important, to his students. Franklin's dedication to mentoring those who sought his help, as well as providing for his family, is beyond compare. In one essay, John W. Franklin offers an inside view of growing up with John Hope and Aurelia Franklin, detailing the travels and associations that were a part of his experience as their son. Alfred Moss, coauthor of the last three editions of From Slavery to Freedom, shares special images of Franklin as mentor to a young Anglican priest. Genna Rae McNeil shows us the quintessential teacher through the eyes of a passionate young scholar beginning her own voyage into the study of American history. George Fredrickson takes on the challenge of explaining the complexity of the work of this man who has been both a fervent proponent of racial equality and a practitioner of "detached, objective, dispassionate historical scholarship." Each of the pieces--by men and by women, by blacks and by whites, by several generations of participants in the twentieth century's journey toward a better America--recalls for us what a vital role John Hope Franklin has played in that voyage. Tributes to John Hope Franklin is a joy to read and an incredible opportunity to celebrate a life and a body of historical work dedicated to achieving and sharing the wisdom that scholarly excellence provides.

Examines the works of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and several other canonical figures, to uncover a rich and vital tradition of black environmental thought from the abolition movement through the Harlem Renaissance. Provides the first careful linkage of the early conservation movement to black history, the first detailed description of black agrarianism, and the first analysis of scientific racism as an environmental theory.