In time for the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington, the Library of America is publishing a landmark collection of civil rights reporting in America, Reporting Civil Rights. The two-volume work is at once a testament to our country's First Amendment rights, and a somber yet inspiring portrait of oppression. The editorial advisory board, which includes Clayborne Carson, David J. Garrow, Bill Kovach and Carol Posgrove, has chosen pieces that span from 1941, when blacks struggled for equal treatment in the Army, to 1973, when, writes Alice Walker, "freedom [was] still an elusive tease, and in the very act of grabbing for it one [could] become shackled." Among the treasures here are Langston Hughes's 1945 recollection of eating in dining cars south of the Mason-Dixon line; a 1963 piece by Hunter S. Thompson on Louisville, Ky. ("a Southern city with Northern problems"); and John Hersey's 1964 article from The Saturday Evening Post about a black man who tries to register to vote. There are nearly 200 newspaper and magazine reports, book excerpts and features in each volume. B&w photos. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

These new editions cover the American Civil Rights Movement from 1941 through 1973. In the tradition of the publisher's superb Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism, 1959-1975, the volumes present newspaper and magazine articles from the popular and African American press. Volume 1 opens with an appeal in the May 1941 Black Worker calling for a protest march on Washington, DC, that July. The second volume closes with Alice Walker's 1973 "Staying Home in Mississippi" from the New York Times Magazine. In between, we experience race riots in World War II, the Montgomery bus boycott, the rise of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, the Watts riots, gains in obtaining voting and civil rights, and failures to obtain greater economic and social equality. The 151 writers whose works are collected here include Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, John Hersey, Robert Penn Warren, David Halberstam, Jimmy Breslin, James Baldwin, Marshall Frady, and Tom Wolfe. Reading their articles brings alive the tastes, sounds, textures, and emotions of this tumultuous and epic period in American life. Each volume also contains a chronology and biographical sketches of the contributors. Recommended for all libraries.-Stephen L. Hupp, West Virginia Univ., Parkersburg (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the March on Washington, this collection captures the long, arduous struggle for civil rights. The two-volume set begins with A. Philip Randolph's 1941 urgent call for black Americans to march on the nation's capital and ends with Alice Walker's poignant 1973 recollection of that march. In between are nearly 200 articles, essays, and book excerpts recalling the purpose and power of the civil rights movement and its profound influence on changing the status quo of race relations in the U.S. Volume 1, chronicling developments from 1941 through 1963, includes Carl Rowan on school desegregation, Martin Luther King's letter from the Birmingham jail, Charlayne Hunter on her harrowing experience integrating the University of Georgia, and Howard Zinn's criticism of John F. Kennedy as a "reluctant emancipator." Volume 2, which covers 1963 through 1973, includes Russell Baker on the 1963 March on Washington, Claude Sitton on the Birmingham church bombing that killed four black girls, Marc Crawford on Malcolm X's break with the Nation of Islam, and Earl Caldwell on the assassination of Martin Luther King. Other contributors include James Baldwin, Jimmy Breslin, Robert Coles, Joan Didion, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, Gordon Parks, Lillian Smith, John Steinbeck, Calvin Trillin, and Tom Wolfe. Both volumes include inserts of news photographs, biographical sketches of the contributors, and explanatory notes. An important anthology for readers interested in the history of the civil rights movement. --Vanessa Bush