The County Library discussion

Hello all,

Welcome to 2025! In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 20, our reading challenge is to read a book that's about Civil Rights.

You could read nonfiction titles like We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance, Beautiful People: My Thirteen Truths About Disability, The Untold Story of Barbara Rose Johns, or The Bridges Yuri Built: How Yuri Kochiyama Marched Across Movements.

Or a fiction title like I See Color, 54 Miles: A Novel, Only the Wicked, or In a League of Her Own.

Searching in our library catalog, I found over 700 titles using the subject keyword "Civil Rights" so I'm sure you'll find something that interests you.

Good luck!

Because I have so many other books I want to read this month, I am going to read the picture book Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad

I am going to read Justice Rising: 12 Amazing Black Women in the Civil Rights Movement.

Those titles both sound really great!

I'm going to read Loving vs Virginia by Patricia Hruby Powell. it's about the case that brought about legalizing marriage between races.

I read Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King

Complete 1-5-25

Linda wrote: "Because I have so many other books I want to read this month, I am going to read the picture book [book:Henry's Fr..."

This is a wonderful book.

Greg wrote: "I'll be reading
Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America
by Gilbert King"

This is an immensley fascinating book.

I am reading The Participants: The Men of the Wannsee Conference by Hans-Christian Jasch and Christoph Kreutzmüller.

Civil Rights is an issue that occurs in many nations. In Rwanda, the mass killings of their genocide occurred because of a loss of civil rights of a whole group of people whose only crime was being born of that culture. In the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia, Christian, Buddhist and Muslim citizens were specifically targeted as well as the well educated people. In Nazi Germany, not only Jews, but the Romany people, the mentally disabled, homosexuals and many other groups were murdered in a number so impossible to comprehend that it has birthed a strong group of Holocaust deniers. Most people do not know that 80% of the Romany people were killed in the camps. All victims of that horror reach an incomprehensible 13 million. If you protest and say, "Wait, it was 6 milllion. All the time we hear 6 million." The 6 million is the Jews. The 7 million were all the groups other than the Jews. The Jews were just an espcial target.

The determination of the full methodology of the murder of the Jews was a topic of a Conference called by Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague, at a beautiful home on the shore of Lake Wannsee in Berlin. Now referred to as the Wannsee Conference, it was the meeting of 15 men to discuss that methodology of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question. The book I am reading is a compilation of biographies of each of the 15 men.

If you are curious about the house, it is the setting of the 2001 film Conspiracy which is about that conference, a film well worth watching.

I will now step down from my lecture platform.

If I get my hold in time, I will read
The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis.
The black nurses were lured from the south to New York with the promise of a good career and escape from Jim Crow laws. Instead, they worked in an understaffed, underfunded facility called "the pest house". I plan on reading this book for Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge- read about a little known history.

My other possibilities:
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America,

The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power

Sit-In How Four Friends Stood Up By Sitting Down.

I made a 'Civil Rights' tag for my shelves. I put 13 books on it so far. It's a work in progress.

I recently read They Called Me a Lioness which would be a great title for this one. (of course, I read it last month, so it doesn't work for me lol)

Happy New Year everyone! I will read To Boldly Go: How Nichelle Nichols and Star Trek Helped Advance Civil Rights by Angela Dalton in honor of a late friend who was inspired and identified with this 1960s portrayal of a smart, respected, and capable Black female character. Completed Jan. 6.

I read Loving vs Virginia. It was a great book.

I love all the different books people are choosing.

In December, I listened to "The Small and the Mighty," by Sharon McMahon - it was excellent! I should have saved it for this challenge, but that's okay.

This month, I'll listen to "My Seven Black Fathers," by Will Jawando - I hadn't heard of it, but it sounds interesting to me.

I read The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. It was eye opening.

It looked at neighborhoods across the nation, however, it opened with my childhood neighborhood, Rollingwood, California. The WWII effort expanded the population of Richmond and the Bay Area, CA from 20,000 to 100,000 people, working in the shipyard, oil refinery, factories, etc. In 1943, Rollingwood was planned and built to expand suburban housing for whites only. Each house had to have a bedroom with a separate entrance, so the white family could rent a room to a white worker. That was my bedroom.

I never knew why my bedroom had an exterior door. It was scary, me being younger than 10 years old. I won't discuss this with my family of origin because they are all still overtly racist and our opinions would clash. This book has shed new light on my childhood. I read it through Libby and I might buy it.

Teresa wrote: "I read The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. It was eye opening.

It looked at neighborhoods across the nation, however, it opened with my..."

Wow! What an interesting thing to learn about your childhood home!

I finished . I really enjoyed this book and the illustrations were great also.

I forgot to post. But I finished reading Justice Rising: 12 Amazing Black Women in the Civil Rights Movement a few days ago. It was a pretty good summary of each woman's life. Perfect for kids, but as an adult, I would have loved more detail.

I have finished The Participants: The Men of the Wannsee Conference by Hans-Christian Jasch and Christoph Kreutzmüller ( Review. ) It was very interesting.

Teresa wrote: "I read The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. It was eye opening.

It looked at neighborhoods across the nation, however, it opened with my..."

That is super interesting that the book talked very specifically about where you grew up!

I finished “My Seven Black Fathers.” It was excellent!

I read “James” earlier this month, does that count?

I read King: A Life (YA) which was excellent and I read Black in Blues: How a color tells the story of my people (which wasn’t fully about civil rights but did touch on them) it was a beautiful way to learn history.

I read “When Thunder Comes” by J. Patrick Lewis. It is a compilation of poems about the lives of different civil rights leaders. It was eye opening to read, and gave me a new perspective. Overall, a good read.

Last day to let me know if you've finished the challenge!

Elizabeth is our prize drawing winner for January’s reading challenge for reading James by Percival Everett.

Congratulations!