Pines and Plains Libraries

"A gripping and true story about five boys who were kidnapped in the North and smuggled into slavery in the Deep South -- and their daring attempt to escape and bring their captors to justice, reminiscent of Twelve Years A Slave and Never Caught"--

"According to commentator and lawyer Elie Mystal, Republicans are wrong when they tell you the First Amendment allows religious fundamentalists to discriminate against gay people who like cake. They're wrong when they tell you the Second Amendment protects the right to own a private arsenal. They're wrong when they say the death penalty isn't cruel or unusual punishment, and they're wrong when they tell you we have no legal remedies for the scourge...

Shares the story of Sarah Roberts and her 1847 case petitioning that she be allowed to attend a white school, explaining how her heroic efforts established key precedents and paved the way for civil rights advancements.

"Starting in the 1870s, Jim Crow laws began to appear across the South. Their aim was to enforce racial segregation, consolidating power in the hands of whites. This book examines the impact of these laws and other challenges that African Americans faced between the Reconstruction period and World War I. Topics discussed include the rise of groups promoting white supremacy, laws designed to quash African-American voting, Plessey v. Ferguson, the success...

"Introducing a new nonfiction series for the next generation of activists, uncovering the hidden history of the United States through an anti-racist lens. The true story of the discriminatory laws and ideas that affected African American life for generations. In the late nineteenth century, white lawmakers in the United States created a set of policies, collectively called "Jim Crow," that created segregated facilities, like schools and parks, for...

A prize-winning scholar draws on astonishing new research to demonstrate how Black people used the law to their advantage long before the Civil Rights Movement. The familiar story of civil rights goes like this: once, America's legal system shut Black people out and refused to recognize their rights, their basic human dignity, or even their very lives. When lynch mobs gathered, police and judges often closed their eyes, if they didn't join in. For...

"A gathering of essays by the acclaimed Harvard legal scholar and public intellectual, that explores all the relevant cultural and historical issues of the past quarter century having to do with race and race relations in America. With a gimlet eye, decency and humaneness (and often courting controversy), Randall Kennedy chronicles his reactions over the past quarter century to arguments, events, and people that have compelled him to put pen to paper....