Reviews

The Bill of the Century: The Epic Battle for the Civil Rights Act, by Clay Risen

neha_rainbows's review

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challenging informative slow-paced

3.75

catherinew's review against another edition

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4.0

"In a tragic counterpoint to the triumph of July 2, two weeks [after the bill had been passed], Harlem and parts of Brooklyn erupted in three days of rioting. The violence was touched off by the police shooting of an unarmed black teenager, but it also gave vent to black anger over unemployment, police brutality, school and housing discrimination, and poor city services in minority neighborhoods. Similar rioting broke out in South Central Los Angeles the next year, Cleveland the year after, Newark and Detroit in 1967, and in more than a hundred cities, including Washington , Baltimore, and Chicago, after the April 4, 1968, assassination of Martin Luther King Jr."

An interesting read for class especially in the wake of the deaths of Michael Brown (Ferguson, MO) and Eric Garner (Staten Island, NY). Probably the most pleasurable read for my class on political polarization.
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