Human Rights Book Discussion

American Midnight
the Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis
Adam Hochschild, , 421 pages
San Diego Library has 12 copies
A reassessment of the period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of American democracy were threatened by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration, and the rights of labor. Historian Adam Hochschild spotlights forgotten repression while celebrating an unforgettable set of Americans who strove to fix their fractured country—and showing how their struggles still guide us today.

Walk With Me
a Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer
Kate Clifford Larson, , 322 pages
San Diego Library has 2 copies
Biographer Larson delivers a moving and in-depth portrait of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977). The youngest of 20 children born to tenant farmers in the Mississippi Delta, Hamer left school at age 13 to work the fields full-time. Her long simmering passion for change led her to participate in voter registration drives organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi. Larson details the backlash to the civil rights movement in Mississippi and sheds light on the conflicts within the movement, in particular the points of contention between middle-class leaders and grassroots organizers like Hamer.
ALTERNATIVES:
Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring Message to America
Blain, Keisha N., 213 pages
San Diego Library has 2 copies
Fannie Lou Hamer: America's Freedom Fighting Woman
Brooks, Maegan Parker, 181 pages
San Diego Library has 2 copies
For Freedom's Sake: the Life of Fannie Lou Hamer
Lee, Chana Kai, 255 pages
San Diego Library has 2 copies

The Looting Machine
Warlords, Oligarchs, Corporations, Smugglers, and the Theft of Africa's Wealth
Burgis, Tom, 321 pages
San Diego Library has 3 copies
One of Financial Times’ Books of the Year, 2015, The Looting Machine exposes the truth about the African development miracle: for the resource states, it’s a mirage. The oil, copper, diamonds, gold and coltan deposits attract a global network of traders, bankers, corporate extractors and investors who combine with venal political cabals to loot the states’ value. And the vagaries of resource-dependent economies could pitch Africa’s new middle class back into destitution just as quickly as they climbed out of it.

Waste
One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret
by Flowers, Catherine Coleman, 256 pages
San Diego Library has 4 copies
Both a chronicle of the rural sanitation crisis and the autobiography of an environmental justice advocate, "Waste" spotlights the lack of proper waste sanitation in rural America and the phenomenal toll it takes on public health and dignity.