The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle

"When I’m teaching, I enjoy having students read primary sources . I think it’s important for students not just to read about historical moments, but actually read text from the historical moment. This book is excellent because it’s a collection of speeches and other primary source materials that students can read and study and understand. “My interest sits primarily at the intersection of religion and the civil rights movement” I really enjoy watching students’ eyes come alive when they’re reading an actual speech, or a press conference, or an address of some sort. I think it’s really good for students, and then it goes well with images of the civil rights movement. It’s one thing to read about the famous campaign in Birmingham in 1963, it’s another thing to read the speeches and actually see the images on video: the police dogs, the fire hoses and what people went through, just to be treated on an equal basis. So this book goes well with the actual raw historical footage. This text goes from 1954-1990. It is edited by a number of excellent scholars, including Darlene Clark Hine, Gerald Gill, David J. Garrow, and Martin Luther King’s collaborator, Vincent Harding, as well as my predecessor at Stanford’s Martin Luther King Institute, Clayborn Carson."