"I wonder, then, what freedom is. Is it a place? Is it a thought? Can it be stolen? Can it be bought?" As powerful as it is beautiful, Freedom, We Sing is a lyrical picture book designed to inspire and give hope to readers around the world. Molly Mendoza's immersive, lush illustrations invite kids to ponder singer/songwriter Amyra León's poem about what it means to be free. It's the perfect book for parents who want a way to gently start the conversation with their kids about finding hope in these very tense times we are living in.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, such songs as "We Shall Overcome," "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize," and "Do What the Spirit Says Do" were sung at virtually every mass meeting, demonstration, and planning session of Civil Rights activists. They were sung on the Freedom Rides, during the marches, and in jail cells of the South. Movement activists have commented frequently and eloquently on the ways that singing and songs gave them strength and a sense of self. This study offers a close analysis of the lyrics of the songs most central to the Civil Rights Movement, with an eye to understanding the songs as self-persuasion. In the songs, the activists defined themselves and their world, and reinforced a plan of action for their participation in the Movement. This analysis of the freedom songs is set in the context of Movement history and supported with commentary from activists and background information on Movement activities. In addition, this study offers readers insights into the moving and inspiring power of the freedom songs.

On benches just for 'colored, ' black folks obeyed the rules. Rosa Parks at the front of the bus, she let her light shine. In the 1950's and 1960's, the struggle for civil rights forever changed the landscape of America. In her debut Blue Apple book, Vanessa Newton candid images illuminate anew the inequality that affected Americans, young and old. With an introduction by Ruby Bridges and text to the tune of "This Little Light of Mine," Newton's rich, mixed-media illustrations create a vivid message of hope.

In Betty Reid Soskin’s 96 years of living, she has been a witness to a grand sweep of American history. When she was born in 1921, the lynching of African-Americans was a national epidemic, blackface minstrel shows were the most popular American form of entertainment, white women had only just won the right to vote, and most African-Americans in the Deep South could not vote at all. From her great-grandmother, who had been enslaved until her mid-20s, Betty heard stories of slavery and the times of terror and struggle for black folk that followed. In her lifetime, Betty has watched the nation begin to confront its race and gender biases when forced to come together in the World War II era; seen our differences nearly break us apart again in the upheavals of the civil rights and Black Power eras; and, finally, lived long enough to witness both the election of an African-American president and the re-emergence of a militant, racist far right. The child of proud Louisiana Creole parents who refused to bow down to Southern discrimination, Betty was raised in the Bay Area black community before the great westward migration of World War II. After working in the civilian home front effort in the war years, she and her husband, Mel Reid, helped break down racial boundaries by moving into a previously all-white community east of the Oakland hills, where they raised four children while resisting the prejudices against the family that many of her neighbors held. With Mel, she opened up one of the first Bay Area record stores in Berkeley both owned by African-Americans and dedicated to the distribution of African-American music. Her volunteer work in rehabilitating the community where the record shop began eventually led her to a paid position as a state legislative aide, helping to plan the innovative Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, California, then to a “second” career as the oldest park ranger in the history of the National Park Service. In between, she used her talents as a singer and songwriter to interpret and chronicle the great American social upheavals that marked the 1960s. In 2003, Betty displayed a new talent when she created the popular blog CBreaux Speaks, sharing the sometimes fierce, sometimes gently persuasive, but always brightly honest story of her long journey through an American and African-American life. Blending together selections from many of Betty’s hundreds of blog entries with interviews, letters, and speeches, Sign My Name to Freedom invites you along on that journey, through the words and thoughts of a national treasure who has never stopped looking at herself, the nation, or the world with fresh eyes.

As a young girl, Ani Choying escaped her violent home for a monastery in Nepal. One day, an American jazz guitarist heard the young nun sing and was so enthralled by her voice that he recorded an album with her. The pay cheque enabled Ani Choying to open Arya Tara School, just outside Kathmandu, offering shelter and education to sixty disadvantaged girls. Ani Choying now tours the world giving concerts, driven by her desire to help her young Nepalese charges. In 'Singing For Freedom' she tells her shocking and inspiring story.

Two classic collections of freedom songs, We Shall Overcome (1963) and Freedom Is A Constant Struggle (1968), are reprinted here in a single edition which includes a major new introduction by the editors, words and music to songs, important documentary photographs, and scores of firsthand accounts by participants in this key movement which reshaped U.S. history.

Two classic collections of freedom songs by historians Guy and Candie Carawan are reprinted here in a single edition. Includes a major new introduction by the editors, as well as words and music to original songs from the Civil Rights movement.

Montgomery, Alabama, 1955--the civil rights movement has begun. The authors build a narrative from the words of the people, their photographs and their songs to form an emphasis on triumph in an uncertain age. Photos and music.

The twin acts of singing and fighting for freedom have been inseparable in African American history. May We Forever Stand tells an essential part of that story. With lyrics penned by James Weldon Johnson and music composed by his brother Rosamond, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was embraced almost immediately as an anthem that captured the story and the aspirations of black Americans. Since the song's creation, it has been adopted by the NAACP and performed by countless artists in times of both crisis and celebration, cementing its place in African American life up through the present day. In this rich, poignant, and readable work, Imani Perry tells the story of the Black National Anthem as it traveled from South to North, from civil rights to black power, and from countless family reunions to Carnegie Hall and the Oval Office. Drawing on a wide array of sources, Perry uses "Lift Every Voice and Sing" as a window on the powerful ways African Americans have used music and culture to organize, mourn, challenge, and celebrate for more than a century.

Bob Dylan’s abrupt abandonment of overtly political songwriting in the mid-1960s caused an uproar among critics and fans. In Wicked Messenger, acclaimed cultural-political commentator Mike Marqusee advances the new thesis that Dylan did not drop politics from his songs but changed the manner of his critique to address the changing political and cultural climate and, more importantly, his own evolving aesthetic. Wicked Messenger is also a riveting political history of the United States in the 1960s. Tracing the development of the decade’s political and cultural dissent movements, Marqusee shows how their twists and turns were anticipated in the poetic aesthetic—anarchic, unaccountable, contradictory, punk— of Dylan's mid-sixties albums, as well as in his recent artistic ventures in Chronicles, Vol. I and Masked and Anonymous. Dylan’s anguished, self-obsessed, prickly artistic evolution, Marqusee asserts, was a deeply creative response to a deeply disturbing situation. "He can no longer tell the story straight," Marqusee concludes, "because any story told straight is a false one."