The Problem -- The Mississippi Plan. Jim Crow South. -- The New Negro. Origins of the movement ; The Brown decision ; Little Rock crisis. -- Freedom Bound. Montgomery bus boycott ; Sit-ins ; Freedom ride ;Battle of Ole Miss -- Bombingham ; March on Washington. -- The Movement Fractures. Freedom summer ; Bloody Sunday. -- The Dream Deferred. Black power ; Assessment. -- Documents. 14th Amendment, 1868 -- Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483, 17 May 1954 -- Declaration of Constitutional Principles: the Southern Manifesto, 12 March 1956 -- Herblock cartoon on President Dwight Eisenhower, 1956 -- James Farmer, 'Separation or integration? : a Debate at Cornell University,' 7 March 1962 -- 'We Shall Overcome' -- Robert Kennedy's telephone calls during the Freedom Ride, 22 May 1961 -- Martin Luther King's 'Letter from Birmingham Jail,' 16 April 1963 -- John F. Kennedy's radio and television report to the American people on civil rights, 11 June 1963 -- Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech, 28 August 1963 -- Malcom X's speech in Cleveland, Ohio, April 1964 -- Mississippi voter registration form, early 1960s -- Student Voice editorial cartoon on the FBI, 25 November 1964 -- SNCC handbill on the usefulness of politics in Mississippi, 1964 -- White volunteers in Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964 -- SNCC position paper, 5 August 1966 -- Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, March 1968 -- Black Panthers' founding document, October 1966 -- Graph of poverty status by race, 1939-1994.

The civil rights movement was arguably the most important reform movement in American history. This book recounts the extraordinary and often bloody story of how tens of thousands of ordinary African-Americans overcame long odds to dethrone segregation, to exercise the right to vote and to improve their economic standing. Their civil rights movement required unfathomable courage and persistent agitation, during which many activists sacrificed their homes, jobs and lives. The book shows how concerted pressure in a variety of forms ultimately carried the day in realizing a more just society for African-Americans. -- From back cover.