A selection of articles from "Freedomways," a journal that published the writings of African-American leaders and artists of the freedom movement, from 1961 to 1986.

James Jackson and Esther Cooper Jackson grew up understanding that opportunities came differently for blacks and whites, men and women, rich and poor. In turn, they devoted their lives to the fight for equality, serving as career activists throughout the black freedom movement. Having grown up in Virginia during the depths of the Great Depression, the Jacksons also saw a path to racial equality through the Communist Party. This choice in political affiliation would come to shape and define not only their participation in the black freedom movement but also the course of their own marriage as the Cold War years unfolded. In this dual biography, Sara Rzeszutek examines the couple's political involvement as well as the evolution of their personal and public lives in the face of ever-shifting contexts. She documents the Jacksons' significant contributions to the early civil rights movement, discussing their time leading the Southern Negro Youth Congress, which laid the groundwork for youth activists in the 1960s; their numerous published writings in periodicals such as Political Affairs; and their editorial involvement in The Worker and the civil rights magazine Freedomways. Drawing upon a rich collection of correspondence, organizational literature, and interviews with the Jacksons themselves, Haviland follows the couple through the years as they bore witness to economic inequality, war, political oppression, and victory in the face of injustice. Her study reveals a portrait of a remarkable pair who lived during a transformative period of American history and whose story offers a vital narrative of persistence, love, and activism across the long arc of the black freedom movement.

This book deals with the forgotten history of the civil rights movement. The American Left played a significant part in the origins of that movement, whose history has traditionally been focused on the later 1940's and early 1950's. This approach needs serious re-thinking in light of what took place in the later 1930's with the organization and activity of groups like the Southern Negro Youth Congress that brought both African-American and white workers and students together in the fight for economic and social justice. Thanks to the post-World War II Red Scare such groups as well as Left African-American leaders like Esther and James Jackson have been overlooked or excised from an exciting, controversial, and important story. With all due credit to the churches which played such a pivotal role in finally winning Blacks their civil rights, the early history involving the Left, workers of both races, and the labor unions must be assimilated into America's memory, for there were important continuities between what they did and the later church-based struggle. This book was published as a special issue of American Communist History.

Dissent and the Dynamics of Cultural Change: Lessons from the Underground Presses of the Late Sixties, examines alternative presses’ critique of culture at a time of infamous transformation and revolution in the United States. In this new study, author Matthew Pifer seeks to delineate the structure of dissent to better understand how cultural change is realized, and explores the relationships between the public and those cultural institutions that define the values and social norms that shaped daily life.

In this richly detailed firsthand history of the contemporary Women's Liberation Movement (WLM), scholar-activist Carol Giardina argues against the prevalent belief that the movement grew out of frustrations over the male chauvinism experienced by WLM founders active in the Black Freedom Movement and the New Left. Instead, she contends, it was the ideas, resources, and skills that women gained in these movements that were the new and necessary catalysts for forging the WLM in the 1960s. Giardina uses a focused study of the WLM in Florida to tap into the common theory and history shared by a relatively small band of Women's Liberation founders across the country. Drawing on a wealth of interviews, autobiographical essays, organizational records, and published writings, Freedom for Women brings to light information that has been previously ignored in other secondary accounts about the leadership of African American women in the movement. It also explores activists' roots in other movements on the left. Comprehensive, serendipitous, and carefully formulated, Giardina's work is a vivid portrait of the people and events that shaped radical feminism.

This book of biographical sketches of notable African Americans from Mississippi includes a total of 166 figures, all who have made significant contributions. Black history makers are defined herein as those who have achieved national prominence in their fields, who have made lasting contributions within the state as pioneers in their fields, or who contributed to their own communities or fields as role models. Each of those included in the book either was born in Mississippi, spent a part of their childhood there, or migrated to Mississippi and remained. History makers covered include Hiram R. Revels, the first Black US Senator; Blanche K. Bruce, the first Black US Senator to serve a six-year term; political and civil rights leaders such as Aaron Henry, Medgar Evers, and Fannie Lou Hamer; William Johnson, a free Black man from antebellum Natchez; Margaret Murray Washington, wife of Booker T. Washington; Walter Payton, former running back for the Chicago Bears; and contributors to arts and letters such as Leontyne Price, William Grant Still, Margaret Walker Alexander, James Earl Jones, and “Bo Diddley” McDaniel, a pioneer rock-and-roll musician; as well as other notable Black Mississippians. The book is organized into ten thematic sections: politics, civil rights, business, education, performing and visual arts, journalism and literature, military, science/medicine/social work, sports, and religion. And each section is introduced by an historical overview of this field in the state of Mississippi. This book is a valuable reference work for those wishing to assess the contributions of African Americans to the history of Mississippi. Of particular significance is the fact that it is a collection which brings attention to lesser-known figures as well as those of considerable renown.