A Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Journey to Selma, Alabama

Wednesday, July 20
8:30am-8:00pm EST 
An immersive day trip to Selma, Alabama 

Friday, July 22
12:00pm-2:30pm 
An Activation and Reflective Luncheon 

RESOURCE GUIDE 

This guide was developed for those that would like to immerse themselves more deeply in the learning and reflecting upon the history of civil and human rights in the United States of America. The specific focus of the guide is to engage participants of the Evelyn Gibson Lowery Civil Rights Heritage Tour 2.0 who are dedicated to examining with specificity the movement particularly as we discuss the significance of voting rights and resist all efforts to suppress the importance of this history and the ongoing struggle that exists to this day. 

Short Excerpts - Understanding the History of Civil Rights and Selma, Alabama 

Videos:

• Evelyn Gibson Lowery and Naomi Barber King at the Memorial Marker of my Mom, Viola Liuzzo

• March from Selma to Montgomery | American Freedom Stories 

• Selma 50 years later: Remembering Bloody Sunday with Amelia Boynton Robinson

Articles:

• The Selma Voting Rights Struggle: 15 Key Points from Bottom-Up History and Why It Matters Today by Emilye Crosby 

• Voting in American Politics: A Syllabus compiled by JSTOR

Key Books and Resources - Understanding the History of Civil Rights and Selma: 

• An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America by Andrew Young with a foreword by Quincy Jones

• Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt by Hasan Kwame Jeffries

• Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby

• The House by the Side of the Road: The Selma Civil Rights Movement by Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson

• In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma by Bernard Lafayette, Kathryn Lee Johnson

• I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle by Charles M. Payne

• Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC's Dream for a New America by Wesley C. Hogan

• Why the Vote Wasn't Enough for Selma by Karlyn Forner

Voting Rights, Democracy and Freedom Struggles: 

• One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy by Carol Anderson with a foreword by Dick Durbin

• Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Martha S. Jones

• The Times They Were a-Changin': 1964, the Year the Sixties Arrived and the Battle Lines of Today Were Drawn by Robert S. McElvaine

• The Movement Made Us: A Father, a Son, and the Legacy of a Freedom Ride by David Dennis Jr. in collaboration with David J. Dennis Sr.

• The Voting Rights Wars: The NAACP and the Ongoing Struggle for Justice by Gloria Browne Marshall with Foreword by C.T. Vivian 

Black Suffragists and the Fight for Civil Rights: 

• The Untold Story of Black Suffragists, a short video featuring Martha S. Jones

• 5 Black Suffragists Who Fought for the 19th Amendment – And Much More by Lakshmi Gandhi 

• These Nineteen Black Women Fought for Voting Rights by Nsenga Burton 

Books appropriate for younger audiences:

• Selma, Lord, Selma: Girlhood Memories of the Civil Rights Days by Sheyann Webb-Christburg, Rachel West Nelson Milhouse, and Frank Sikora

• Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March by Lynda Blackmon Lowery as told to Elspeth Leacock and Susan Buckley, Illustrated by PJ Loughran

• Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s by Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer

• Lifting As We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box by Evette Dionne 

Contemporary Books on Fighting Voter Suppression:

• Our Time is Now by Stacey Abrams 

• Voter Suppression in U.S. Elections by Stacey Abrams, Carol Anderson, Kevin M. Kruse, Heather Cox Richardson, Heather Ann Thompson, and Jim Downs (Editor) 

• One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy by Carol Anderson 

For a more comprehensive list of books about the Civil Rights Movement and Selma (and beyond!) check out the Social Justice Books: A Teaching for Change Project.

Series and films to watch: 

• Eyes on the Prize

• All In: The Fight for Democracy 

• Freedom Summer