Product Description: Winner of the 2001 Gustavus Myers Program Book Award. Contrary to simple textbook tales, the civil rights movement did not arise spontaneously in 1954 with the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. The black struggle for civil rights can be traced back to the arrival of the first Africans, and to their work in the plantations, manufacturies, and homes of the Americas...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: "How can anyone claim to really understand our Constitution without knowing what these critical traditions had to say?"—Michael Wallace, Professor of History, John Jay College."A real contribution to the subject of democracy and liberalism...read more