While many know the story of the Black Panthers, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and others who populate the civil rights history books, Amy Sonnie, James Tracy and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz — the authors of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times — want to tell a different story.
Although many historians believe that working-class whites stood on the sidelines during the movement, Hillbilly Nationalists paints a different picture, illustrating the efforts of poor, working-class whites against racial inequality and discrimination during and after the civil rights movement. Hillbilly Nationalists documents several of these groups from Chicago to the Bronx, N.Y., some of them even self-proclaimed "hillbillies," whose fights to end racism were often overlooked.
Hillbilly Nationalists is a great read for history buffs and leisure readers alike. It is available now.
Previous recommendation: New Book Offers Crash Course on Today's Black Life.
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