Historical Dictionary of the Civil Rights Movement

Christopher M. Richardson has worked for two major international law firms as an employment and labor attorney in North Carolina and Georgia. As an attorney, Richardson litigated cases in federal and state courts and before administrative agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) involving alleged discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful discharge. Further, he provided counsel and worked directly with clients regarding a wide variety of employment matters, including issues arising under Title VII Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination Employment Act (ADEA), the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act. Currently, He currently works as a Diplomat for the U.S. Department of State.Ralph E. Luker has held faculty appointments in history and religion at Allegheny College, Antioch College, Lincoln University, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and Morehouse College. He is the author of The Social Gospel in Black and White: American Racial Reform, 1885–1912, which won the Kenneth Scott Latourette Prize and was named an Outstanding Book of 1991 by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights. His work on Volumes I and II of The Papers of Martin Luther King was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Luker’s articles have appeared in American Quarterly, Church History, the Journal of American History, the Journal of Negro History, the New England Quarterly, Slavery and Abolition, the South Atlantic Quarterly, Southern Studies, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. He is the author of the first edition of Historical Dictionary of the Civil Rights Movement (Scarecrow Press, 1996).

The second edition of this extensive one-volume dictionary by Luker and Richardson incorporates recent material useful to readers undertaking research on the US civil rights movement. Jon Woronoff notes that Richardson, who updated and expanded the volume, 'took substantial personal effort to bring the story up to date and provide readers with an excellent basis for their own quest for both information and understanding.' To assist readers with the official names of various organizations, the volume includes a list of acronyms and abbreviations. The chronology, which begins in 1941 and ends with 2013, provides an overview of the events of the movement. The extensive introduction includes sections titled 'Predecessors and Pioneers,' starting with 1860; 'The Foundations of the Movement: World War II and after 1940-1954'; and 'Civil Rights and Conservatism: AIDS, the Drug War, Reaganism, and the Rise of Barack Obama 1980-present.' The approximately 450 pages of this detailed dictionary feature boldface terms to indicate other entries in the dictionary. The extensive see and see also references establish additional unity. The 100-plus page bibliography includes books, journals, and Internet resources. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers.