WINNER OF THE PENDERYN MUSIC BOOK PRIZE 2018 In the 1950s and 1960s, Memphis, Tennessee, was the launch pad of musical pioneers such as Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Al Green and Isaac Hayes, and by 1968 was a city synonymous with soul music. It was a deeply segregated city, ill at ease with the modern world and yet to adjust to the era of civil rights and racial integration. Stax Records offered an escape from the turmoil of the real world for many soul and blues musicians, with much of the music created there becoming the soundtrack to the civil rights movements. The book opens with the death of the city's most famous recording artist, Otis Redding, who died in a plane crash in the final days of 1967, and then follows the fortunes of Redding's label, Stax/Volt Records, as its fortunes fall and rise again. But, as the tense year unfolds, the city dominates world headlines for the worst of reasons: the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

First in the award-winning soul music trilogy—featuring Motown artists Diana Ross & the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye, and others. Detroit 67 is “a dramatic account of twelve remarkable months in the Motor City” during the year that changed everything (Sunday Mail). It takes you on a turbulent journey through the drama and chaos that ripped through the city in 1967 and tore it apart in personal, political, and interracial disputes. It is the story of Motown, the breakup of the Supremes, and the damaging clashes at the heart of the most successful African American music label ever. Set against a backdrop of urban riots, escalating war in Vietnam, and police corruption, the book weaves its way through a year when soul music came of age and the underground counterculture flourished. LSD arrived in the city with hallucinogenic power, and local guitar band MC5—self-styled holy barbarians of rock—went to war with mainstream America. A summer of street-level rebellion turned Detroit into one of the most notorious cities on earth, known for its unique creativity, its unpredictability, and self-lacerating crime rates. The year 1967 ended in social meltdown, rancor, and intense legal warfare as the complex threads that held Detroit together finally unraveled. “A whole-hearted evocation of people and places,” Detroit 67 is “a tale set at a fulcrum of American social and cultural history” (Independent).

Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book • School Library Journal Best Book of the Year • Booklist Editors' Choice • Kirkus Reviews Best Children's Book • Booklist Top 10 Diverse Books for Middle Grade or Older Readers • Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Books This award-winning book will help kids understand the life and legacy of Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ★"(A) history that everyone should know: required and inspired." —Kirkus Reviews This picture book tells the story of a nine-year-old girl who in 1968 witnessed the Memphis sanitation strike - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s final stand for justice before his assassination - when her father, a sanitation worker, participated in the protest. In February 1968, two African American sanitation workers were killed by unsafe equipment in Memphis, Tennessee. Outraged at the city's refusal to recognize a labor union that would fight for higher pay and safer working conditions, sanitation workers went on strike. The strike lasted two months, during which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was called to help with the protests. While his presence was greatly inspiring to the community, this unfortunately would be his last stand for justice. He was assassinated in his Memphis hotel the day after delivering his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" sermon in Mason Temple Church. Inspired by the memories of a teacher who participated in the strike as a child, author Alice Faye Duncan reveals the story of the Memphis sanitation strike from the perspective of a young girl with a riveting combination of poetry and prose.

NO THIS IS NOT WHAT DR. KING WANTED As a 16-year-old girl, Hester Johnson, found herself participating in Civil Rights marches in Memphis in support of the Sanitation workers that she knew personally. When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support their efforts her life and the world changed forever. Afraid of what was to happen next. "God Help Me!" Glass breaking all around me. Screams and then sirens blaring...policemen swinging sticks. I heard a man yell..."RUN, RUN! GO BACK TO THE CHURCH!" I searched for the Pastor and saw him covering his nose and his mouth with a handkerchief, pointing in the direction of Clayborn Temple. "Oh God help me!" Fearing for our lives we gathered inside the walls of Clayborn Temple. Then the police blasted over a bullhorn..."YOU'VE GOT 15 MINUTES TO COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!" We looked out the balcony window and saw hundreds of policemen lined up across the street. The minister pleaded with us "Do what the police say!"

Race, Power, and Political Emergence in Memphis examines black political behavior and empowerment strategies in the city of Memphis. Each chapter of the text focuses on three themes-mobilization, emergence, and incorporation. By analyzing the effects of race on black political development in Memphis, scholars will be able to examine broader questions about its effects in other cities. How do political machines use substantial black electorates to their advantage? What forms of protest do black communities conduct to rebel against machine rule? What primary mobilization tactics have black citizens used during the different periods of their political development? Why do blacks mobilize more quickly in some cities? In cities with large and predominantly black populations, what elements prevent black candidates from winning citywide races? What constraints do newly elected black mayors face? What benefits do black citizens gain from their representation? After a predominantly black governing coalition is elected, what obstacles remain? Can black citizens translate proportional representation into strong political incorporation? How much power can African Americans realistic expect to gain in cities? This book is the most comprehensive case study of the city's political scene written to date. The text primarily shows that white racism is not the only obstacle to black political development. Black citizens can have population majorities, but lose elections for other reasons. Their ability to win elections and gain full incorporation depends heavily on whether they minimize internal conflict and establish coalitions with middle-class citizens and the business establishment.

Celebrated as the home of the blues and the birthplace of rock and roll, Memphis, Tennessee, is where Elvis Presley, B. B. King, Johnny Cash, and other musical legends got their starts. It is also a place of conflict and tragedy--the site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 assassination--and a city typically marginalized by scholars and underestimated by its own residents. Using this iconic southern city as a case study, Wanda Rushing explores the significance of place in a globalizing age. Challenging the view that globalization renders place generic or insignificant, Rushing argues that cultural and economic distinctiveness persists in part because of global processes, not in spite of them. Rushing weaves her analysis into stories about the history and global impact of blues music, the social and racial complexities of Cotton Carnival, and the global rise of FedEx, headquartered in Memphis. She portrays Memphis as a site of cultural creativity and global industry--a city whose traditions, complex past, and specific character have had an influence on culture worldwide.

The definitive history of the epic struggle for economic justice that became Martin Luther King Jr.'s last crusade. Memphis in 1968 was ruled by a paternalistic "plantation mentality" embodied in its good-old-boy mayor, Henry Loeb. Wretched conditions, abusive white supervisors, poor education, and low wages locked most black workers into poverty. Then two sanitation workers were chewed up like garbage in the back of a faulty truck, igniting a public employee strike that brought to a boil long-simmering issues of racial injustice. With novelistic drama and rich scholarly detail, Michael Honey brings to life the magnetic characters who clashed on the Memphis battlefield: stalwart black workers; fiery black ministers; volatile, young, black-power advocates; idealistic organizers and tough-talking unionists; the first black members of the Memphis city council; the white upper crust who sought to prevent change or conflagration; and, finally, the magisterial Martin Luther King Jr., undertaking a Poor People's Campaign at the crossroads of his life, vilified as a subversive, hounded by the FBI, and seeing in the working poor of Memphis his hopes for a better America.

The presidential election of 1968 forever changed American politics. In this character-driven narrative history, Aram Goudsouzian portrays the key transformations that played out over that dramatic year. It was the last "Old Politics" campaign, where political machines and party bosses determined the major nominees, even as the "New Politics" of grassroots participation powered primary elections. It was an election that showed how candidates from both the Left and Right could seize on "hot-button" issues to alter the larger political dynamic. It showcased the power of television to "package" politicians and political ideas, and it played out against an extraordinary dramatic global tableau of chaos and conflict. More than anything else, it was a moment decided by a contest of political personalities, as a group of men battled for the presidency, with momentous implications for the nation's future. Well-paced, accessible, and engagingly written, Goudsouzian's book chronicles anew the characters and events of the 1968 campaign as an essential moment in American history, one with clear resonance in our contemporary political moment.