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Working Bibliography for No Easy Victories (39 books now listed)
NOTE: By clicking on the ISBN number, you can go to Powell's to order the book. Ten percent of the price will go to support the book project..
Anderson, Terry H. The Movement and the Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. 500 pp.
    ISBN: 0195104579   Years covered: 1960-1973
With a focus on the US, this is one of the best overviews of the political era known as "the Sixties," making it clear that race and the war were both central to the political evolution of the decade.
Archer, Jules. The Incredible Sixties: The Stormy Years That Changed America. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986. 223 pp.
    ISBN: 0152382984   Years covered: 1960-1970
Superficial and could use some factchecking on some points, but this is a wide-ranging survey by a prolific liberal journalist that covers many different aspects, from JFK to Kent State. No mention of Africa at all, and the picture of civil rights is not very well informed.
Arthur, John A. Invisible Sojourners: African Immigrant Diaspora in the United States. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000. 200 pp.
    ISBN: 027596759X   Years covered:
Artists United Against Apartheid. Sun City: The Struggle for Freedom in South Africa. New York: Viking Penguin, 1985. 122 pp.
    ISBN: 0140089977   Years covered: 1985
Photographs, background, story of making of the record.
Biondi, Martha. To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. 360 pp.
    ISBN: 0674010604   Years covered: 1945-1955
Recounts the significance of struggles in New York City, and developments within the left, as a fundamental neglected component of national civil rights struggles. Has several pages on Rev. James Robinson, founder of Operation Crossroads Africa.
Borstelmann, Thomas. The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. 369 pp.
    ISBN: 067400597X   Years covered: 1945-1990
Focuses primarily on the influence of the Cold War in motivating U.S. political figures to deal with domestic race relations. Most detail on Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson eras.
Culverson, Donald R. Contesting Apartheid: U.S. Activism, 1960-1987. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999. 177 pp.
    ISBN: 0813366690   Years covered: 1980-1987
Brief overview of anti-apartheid activism during this period, in context of social movement theory.
Edgar, ed, Robert E. . Sanctioning Apartheid. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 1990. 433 pp.
    ISBN: 0855431639   Years covered: 1986-1987
Eighteen essays on the impact of the Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 and related issues.
Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam Book, 1987. 513 pp.
    ISBN: 0553346016   Years covered: 1960-1969
Goodman, David. Fault Lines: Jorneys into the New South Africa. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999. 418 pp.
    ISBN: 0520232038   Years covered:
Haley, Alex, and Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine Books, 1973. 460 pp.
    ISBN: 0345304950   Years covered: 1925-1965
Chapters 17 and 18 deal with his 1964 trip to the Middle East and Africa; Chapter 19 mentions but provides little detail about his 1965 trip to Africa.
Horne, Gerald. Black and Red: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War, 1944-1963. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986. 437 pp.
    ISBN: 0887060889   Years covered: 1944-1963
One of the pioneering works on the subject. Later books on the same period, however, have considerably more detail on the involvement of Du Bois and his colleagues with African issues.
Horne, Gerald. From the Barrel of a Gun: The United States and the War Against Zimbabwe, 1965-1980. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001. 389 pp.
    ISBN: 0807849030   Years covered: 1965-1980
Houser, George M. No One Can Stop the Rain: Glimpses of Africa's Liberation Struggle. New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1989. 388 pp.
    ISBN: 0829807950   Years covered: 1935-1985
Partly the story of the American Committee on Africa, by its founder and executive director (1955 to 1981). Partly stories of liberation movements and movement leaders with whom Houser was in contact over the years.
James, C. L. R. Nkrumah and the Ghana Revolution. Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill and Company, 1977. 227 pp.
    ISBN: 0882080776   Years covered: 1943-1967
James' reflections on the significance of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah, in essays written at different times and later collected into this volume.
Kelley, Robin D. G. Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2002. 248 pp.
    ISBN: 0807009768   Years covered:
Koning, Hans. Nineteen Sixty-Eight: A Personal Report. New York: W. W. Norton, 1987. 194 pp.
    ISBN: 0393024741   Years covered: 1968-
Well-written and insightful from a writer who was both activist and observer. Includes a timetable on pages 192-194. He was an (armed) bodyguard at wedding of Stokely Carmichael and Miriam Makeba on May 18 at big house in Westchester County.
Krenn, Michael L. Black Diplomacy: African American and the State Department 1945-1969. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1999. 223 pp.
    ISBN: 0765603810   Years covered: 1945-1969
Approaches this theme with a focus on diplomatic personnel and race: how the State Department "reacted to, perceived, and ultimately frustrated the calls for a more representative diplomatic service."
Layton, Azza Salama. International Politics and Civil Rights Policies in the United States, 1941-1960. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 217 pp.
    ISBN: 0521669766   Years covered: 1941-1960
Emphasizes how international pressure, and the use of international pressure by domestic civil rights groups, influenced U.S. government actions on integration, including executive, congressional, and court actions.
Lewis, David Levering. W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963. New York: Henry Holt, 2000. 715 pp.
    ISBN: 0805068139   Years covered: 1919-1963
Second volume of the biography. Last two chapters (pp. 496-571) cover 1945 to his death in Ghana in 1963 on the day of the March on Washington.
Lyman, Princeton N. Partner to History: The U.S. Role in South Africa's Transition to Democracy. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2002. 344 pp.
    ISBN: 1929223366   Years covered:
Magubane, Bernard Makhosezwe. The Ties that Bind: African-American Consciousness of Africa. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 1987. 251 pp.
    ISBN: 0865430373   Years covered:
Makeba, Miriam, and James Hall. Makeba: My Story. New York, NY: New American Library, 1987. 249 pp.
    ISBN: 0453005616   Years covered: 1932-1986
A very personal and frank autobiography, interweaving the personal and the political. From her early years in South Africa, her family, her marriages (including Hugh Masekela and Stokely Carmichael), her appreciation and conflicts with Harry Belafonte (who she calls Big Brother), her time in US and in Guinea, her political statements and political reprisals by US and other countries.
Massie, Robert Kinloch. Loosing the Bonds: The United States and South Africa in the Apartheid Years. New York: Doubleday, 1997. 896 pp.
    ISBN: 0385261675   Years covered: 1960-1990
A narrative with much detail but little analytic focus. Despite its length, the account here seems strangely disconnected from the passions and the broader context of struggles in southern Africa and conflicts over race and U.S. collaboration with apartheid.
McAdam, Doug. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. 304 pp.
    ISBN: 0226555526   Years covered: 1930-1970
A key analytical study, notable for its attention to political process. Key points include the role of "indigenous institutions" in the 1950s and 1960s as the basis for civil rights actions, including, in the South, the Black church, Black colleges, and the NAACP. Also explores the relationship among the different organizational strands, including NAACP, SCLC, and CORE/SNCC, as well as the sources of decline after 1966.
Merriwether, James H. Proudly We Can Be Africans: Black Americans and Africa, 1935-1961. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. 336 pp.
    ISBN: 0807849979   Years covered: 1935-1961
Covers much the same ground as Plummer's earlier book, but with more specific focus on Africa; includes country-focused chapters on South Africa, Kenya, Ghana.
Minter, William. King Solomon's Mines Revisited: Western Interests and the Burdened History of Southern Africa. New York: Basic Books, 1986. 401 pp.
    ISBN: 0465037232   Years covered: 1870-1985
Surveys the interconnections, including structural and ideological ties, between between minority rule in Southern Africa and the Western powers, both European colonial powers and the United States. Roughly a third of the book deals with the period to 1960; two-thirds with the period between 1960 and the mid-1980s.
Nixon, Rob. Homelands, Harlem and Hollywood: South African Culture and the World Beyond. New York: Routledge, 1994. 305 pp.
    ISBN: 0415908612   Years covered: 1948-1994
Collection of separate essays. Particularly relevant to USA/South Africa are chapters on "Harlem, Hollywood, and the Sophiatown Resistance," "Cry White Season," "Sunset on Sun City," and "Mandela, Messianism, and the Media."
Plummer, Brenda Gayle. Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935-1960. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. 423 pp.
    ISBN: 0807845752   Years covered: 1935-1960
Comprehensive survey based on extensive research in a wide range of archives. Focuses on broad themes, including African issues, Cold War and domestic struggles, and global policy.
Plummer, ed, Brenda Gayle. Window on Freedom: Race, Civil Rights, and Foreign Affairs, 1945-1988. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003. 259 pp.
    ISBN: 080785428X   Years covered: 1945-1988
Ten chapters, of which five focus more specifically on Africa. Includes an extensive bibliography.
Ransby, Barbara. Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. 470 pp.
    ISBN: 0807827789   Years covered: 1903-1986
Not a lot directly about Africa here, but a fundamental book about U.S. progressive social movements and internationalism. Full of insights and background generally neglected in other historical accounts.
Robeson, Paul, and Lloyd L. Brown. Here I Stand. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988. 121 pp.
    ISBN: 0807064459   Years covered: 1898-1957
Both an autobiography and a powerful political statement for internationalism, with Africa at the center.
Robinson, Randall. Defending the Spirit: A Black Life in America. New York: Penguin Putnam, 1998. 304 pp.
    ISBN: 0452279682   Years covered: 1967-1997
Interweaves personal autobiography with some episodes from history of TransAfrica, including founding in 1976-77, Free South Africa Movement in 1984, as well as some earlier material such as the Gulf Oil boycott in the early 1970s.
Sale, Kirkpatrick. SDS. New York: Vintage Books, 1973. 752 pp.
    ISBN: 0394719654   Years covered:
Shepherd, Jr, George W. They Are Us: Fifty Years of Human Rights Advocacy. n.p.: Xlibris Corporation, 2002. 435 pp.
    ISBN: 1401048471   Years covered:
Sitkoff, Harvard. The Struggle for Black Equality 1954-1980. New York: Hill and Wang, 1981. 259 pp.
    ISBN: 0809001446   Years covered: 1954-1980
Concise, clearly written summary of the history.
Sutherland, Bill, and Matt Meyer. Guns and Gandhi in Africa: Pan African Insights on Nonviolence, Armed Struggle and Liberation in Africa. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2000. 279 pp.
    ISBN: 0865437513   Years covered: 1940-1998
From the 1950s to the 1980s, Bill Sutherland was a key link between activists in the U.S. and Africa, while living in Ghana and Tanzania and travelling regularly to the U.S. This book tells some of the stories and relates conversations with African leaders, with particular emphasis on Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia, and South Africa.
The Editors of Freedomways, eds. Paul Robeson: The Great Forerunner. New York: International Publishers, 1998. 396 pp.
    ISBN: 071780724X   Years covered: 1898-1978
Collection of articles covering a wide range of topics, by Robeson and tributes by many others. Several, including one by Robert S. Browne, focus on Africa.
Von Eschen, Penny M. Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937-1957. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997. 259 pp.
    ISBN: 0801482925   Years covered: 1937-1957
Portrays the influence on mainstream African American opinion of the internationalist and Pan-Africanist perspectives of Robeson, DuBois, Hunton, and the Council on African Affairs, and the eclipse of this perspective in the late 1940s and 1950s.