A Dream of Freedom: The Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968

In this history of the modern Civil Rights movement, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Diane McWhorter beautifully describes the process that brought about "the end of apartheid in America," providing a context for the ongoing fight for tolerance and equality in this country. McWhorter focuses on the monumental events that occurred between 1954 (the year of Brown versus the Board of Education) and 1968 (the year that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assasinated). Beginning with an overview of the movement since the end of the Civil War, McWhorter also discusses such events as the 1956 Montgomery bus boycott, the 1961 Freedom Rides, and the 1963 demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama, among others. Illustrated with more than 100 arresting photographs, A Dream of Freedom provides children with an understanding of how and why our country long sustained an unthinkable system of prejudice. The author uses interviews she conducted personally with participants and witnesses of these events, oral histories of politicians and leaders of the era (John F. Kennedy, George Wallace, Bull Conner, Martin Luther King), and brief biographies of key players involved in the struggle (John Lewis, Emmet Till) to bring this period of American history to life for young readers. Diane McWhorter won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for her book, Carry Me Home, a personal documentary of the cataclysmic events that took place in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963.