Economic inequalities have been perhaps the most enduring problem facing African Americans since the civil rights movement, despite the attention they have received from activists. Although the civil rights movement dealt successfully with injustices like disenfranchisement and segregated public accommodations, economic disparities between blacks and whites remain sharp, and the wealth gap between the two groups has widened in the twenty-first century. The Economic Civil Rights Movement is a collection of thirteen original essays that analyze the significance of economic power to the black freedom struggle by exploring how African Americans fought for increased economic autonomy in an attempt to improve the quality of their lives. It covers a wide range of campaigns ranging from the World War II era through the civil rights and black power movements and beyond. The unfinished business of the civil rights movement primarily is economic. This book turns backward toward history to examine the ways African Americans have engaged this continuing challenge.

Economic inequalities have been perhaps the most enduring problem facing African Americans since the civil rights movement, despite the attention they have received from activists. Although the civil rights movement dealt successfully with injustices like disenfranchisement and segregated public accommodations, economic disparities between blacks and whites remain sharp, and the wealth gap between the two groups has widened in the twenty-first century. The Economic Civil Rights Movement is a collection of thirteen original essays that analyze the significance of economic power to the black freedom struggle by exploring how African Americans fought for increased economic autonomy in an attempt to improve the quality of their lives. It covers a wide range of campaigns ranging from the World War II era through the civil rights and black power movements and beyond. The unfinished business of the civil rights movement primarily is economic. This book turns backward toward history to examine the ways African Americans have engaged this continuing challenge.

This work documents the importance of the civil rights movement and its lasting impression on American society and culture. This revealing volume looks at the struggle for individual rights from the social historian's perspective, providing a fresh context for gauging the impact of the civil rights movement on everyday life across the full spectrum of American society. From the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case to protests against the Vietnam War to the fight for black power, Civil Rights Movement: People and Perspectives looks at events that set the stage for guaranteeing America's promise to all Americans. In eight chapters, some of the country's leading social historians analyze the most recent investigations into the civil rights era's historical context and pivotal moments. Readers will gain a richer understanding of a movement that expanded well beyond its initial focus (the treatment of African Americans in the South) to include other Americans in regions across the nation.

Weighing in with a balance of the visceral and the cerebral, boxing has attracted writers for millennia. Yet few of the writers drawn to it have truly known the sport and most have never been in the ring. Moving beyond the typical sentimentality, romanticism, or cynicism common to writing on boxing, The Bittersweet Science is a collection of essays about boxing by contributors who are not only skilled writers but also have extensive firsthand experience at ringside and in the gym, the corner, and the ring itself. Editors Carlo Rotella and Michael Ezra have assembled a roster of fresh voices, ones that expand our understanding of the sport's primal appeal. The contributors to The Bittersweet Science journalists, fiction writers, fight people, and more explore the fight world's many aspects, considering boxing as both craft and business, art form and subculture. From manager Charles Farrell's unsentimental defense of fixing fights to former Gold Glover Sarah Deming's complex profile of young Olympian Claressa Shields, this collection takes us right into the ring and makes us feel the stories of the people who are drawn to or sometimes stuck in the boxing world. We get close-up profiles of marquee attractions like Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr., as well as portraits of rising stars and compelling cornermen, along with first-person, hands-on accounts from fighters' points of view. We are schooled in not only how to hit and be hit, but why and when to throw in the towel. We experience the intimate immediacy of ringside as well as the dim back rooms where the essentials come together. And we learn that for every champion there's a regiment of journeymen, dabblers, and anglers for advantage, for every aspiring fighter, a veteran in painful decline. Collectively, the perspectives in The Bittersweet Science offer a powerful in-depth picture of boxing, bobbing and weaving through the desires, delusions, and dreams of boxers, fans, and the cast of managers, trainers, promoters, and hangers-on who make up life in and around the ring.Contributors: Robert Anasi, Brin-Jonathan Butler, Donovan Craig, Sarah Deming, Michael Ezra, Charles Farrell, Rafael Garcia, Gordon Marino, Louis Moore, Gary Lee Moser, Hamilton Nolan, Gabe Oppenheim, Carlo Rotella, Sam Sheridan, and Carl Weingarten.

Few doubt the pro-Israel bias of the Western media. It takes the form of overtly supporting Israel's government policies, or of maintaining neutrality or silence on issues of Israeli violence, occupation, and settlement expansion. Scholar and activist Karma R. Chavez collects eleven interviews that allow dissenting voices a forum to provide rarely heard perspectives on the Palestinian struggle for justice, land, and self-determination.This volume in the Common Threads series is a supplement to the Journal of Civil and Human Rights. The conversations within took place on a radio program Chavez hosted from 2013-16. There, journalists, activists, academic figures, authors, and Palestinian citizens of Israel shared a wide range of thoughts and experiences. Participants covered topics that include: everyday life for Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel; the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement that arose in response to Israel's ongoing actions; the Steven Salaita controversy at the University of Illinois; the pro-Palestine social movement on college campuses; Israel's pinkwashing of human rights abuses; the aftermath of the 2014 attack on Gaza; and Chavez's 2015 visit to the West Bank.

Rooting for the Home Team examines how various American communities create and maintain a sense of collective identity through sports. Looking at large cities such as Chicago, Baltimore, and Los Angeles as well as small rural towns, suburbs, and college towns, the contributors consider the idea that rooting for local athletes and home teams often symbolizes a community's preferred understanding of itself, and that doing so is an expression of connectedness, public pride and pleasure, and personal identity. Some of the wide-ranging essays point out that financial interests also play a significant role in encouraging fan bases, and modern media have made every seasonal sport into yearlong obsessions. Celebrities show up for big games, politicians throw out first pitches, and taxpayers pay plenty for new stadiums and arenas. The essays in Rooting for the Home Team cover a range of professional and amateur athletics, including teams in basketball, football, baseball, and even the phenomenon of no-glove softball. Contributors are Amy Bass, Susan Cahn, Mark Dyreson, Michael Ezra, Elliott J. Gorn, Christopher Lamberti, Allison Lauterbach, Catherine M. Lewis, Shelley Lucas, Daniel A. Nathan, Michael Oriard, Carlo Rotella, Jaime Schultz, Mike Tanier, David K. Wiggins, and David W. Zang.

Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Clay) has always engendered an emotional reaction from the public. From his appearance as an Olympic champion to his iconic status as a national hero, his carefully constructed image and controversial persona have always been intensely scrutinized. In Muhammad Ali, Michael Ezra considers the boxer who calls himself "The Greatest" from a new perspective. He writes about Ali's pre-championship bouts, the management of his career and his current legacy, exploring the promotional aspects of Ali and how they were wrapped up in political, economic, and cultural "ownership." Ezra's incisive study examines the relationships between Ali's cultural appeal and its commercial manifestations. Citing examples of the boxer's relationship to the Vietnam War and the Nation of Islam-which serve as barometers of his "public moral authority"-Muhammad Ali analyzes the difficulties of creating and maintaining these cultural images, as well as the impact these themes have on Ali's meaning to the public.