About this item
In words, photos and on two audio CDs, witness the courageous and controversial stories that defined America's civil rights movementAn entire generation of Americans faced the lynching of teenager Emmett Till, the murder of four girls at church, and the denial of basic liberties like voting rights, equal education and political representation. This is their story.We Shall Overcome is a gripping chronicle of the words and voices of the civil rights movement. From stirring speeches to the voices of hate, this collection brings to life the battle for justice and equality that shook America to its core. We Shall Overcome brings you there--from the schools to the sit-ins, from Little Rock to Selma, from the pulpit to the marches.American Book Award winning author Herb Boyd tells the dramatic stories of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, Stokely Carmichael, Ella Baker and activist groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Black Panthers. In words, photos and on two accompanying audio CDs, you'll witness the courageous and controversial stories that defined America's civil rights movement."With powerfully superb reporting Herb Boyd slams us back into the most grueling hours of Black America's bloody struggle for Civil Rights."--Gordon Parks, award-winning photographer, writer and filmmaker"An indispensable window on history. Herb Boyd's dramatic evocation of the legendary civil rights struggle of the 1960s is at once dramatic history and engaging literature."--Paul Robeson, Jr."We Shall Overcome captures definitively the drama of the mighty social and spiritual movement that transformed America almost fifty years ago. Vivid, compelling, moving, inspiring, it brings alive the years of struggle and success, strife and hope, that led to the final triumph of justice for black Americans against Jim Crow. This is a gift to be cherished, an enduring reminder of the heroism of those women, men, and children who sacrificed even their lives that all of us might be free."--Arnold Rampersad, author of The Life of Langston Hughes, Days of Grace (with Arthur Ashe) , and Jackie Robinson, Cognizant Dean for Humanities and Kimball Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University"From the murder of Emmett Till to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Herb Boyd takes us on a intellectual and spiritual journey of what it has meant to be an African American resisting in America."--Sonia Sanchez, poet and author of the collections Shake Loose My Skin and Like Singing Coming Off Drums among others
About the Author
Herb Boyd is a journalist, activist, teacher, and has authored or edited 22 books, including his most recent one, Civil Rights: Yesterday & Today. His book Baldwin's Harlem, a biography of James Baldwin, was a finalist for a 2009 NAACP Image Award. In 1995, with Robert Allen, he was a recipient of an American Book Award for Brotherman--The Odyssey of Black Men in America, an anthology. We Shall Overcome, a media-fusion book with narration by the late Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, is used in classrooms all over the world, as is his Autobiography of a People and The Harlem Reader. His articles can be found in such publications as The Black Scholar, The Final Call, the Amsterdam News, Cineaste, Downbeat, and The Network Journal, among others.
Among the highlights of his remarkable journalistic career was an invitation to fly on Air Force One with President Obama, whom he has interviewed on several occasions.
Over the last decade or so, Boyd has scripted several documentaries, including several with Keith Beauchamp on cold cases of martyrs from the civil rights era that were shown on Biography Channel and TV One. With filmmaker Eddie Harris, he was the writer on three documentaries--Trek to the Holy Land, Cri de Coeur (Cry from the Heart) , and Slap the Donkey, that tracks the Rev. Al Sharpton's presidential bid in 2004. The latter film was recently selected to be screened at the Montreal Film Festival in 2010. Boyd is also a frequent guest on national television and radio shows, as well as a keynote speaker at many functions sponsored by noted community and college organizations, where his commentaries on African American culture and politics have earned him an increasingly large audience and popularity. For more than forty years, he has taught at institutions of higher learning. Currently, he teaches at the College of New Rochelle in the Bronx and at City College New York, and is also a national and international correspondent for Free Speech TV.org, a media company that specializes in Internet television.
