UPK Books Great Options for Black History Month Reading

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LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 25, 2016) — As the nation celebrates Black History Month, many readers will be looking to learn more about the nation's diverse past. The University Press of Kentucky (UPK) has a great selection of books to choose from, including three new publications for those interested in African-American history, “In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma,” “James and Esther Cooper Jackson: Love and Courage in the Black Freedom Movement” and The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia.

In Peace and Freedom,” written by Bernard LaFayette Jr., relates the civil rights leader's years in Selma, Alabama. LaFayette (b. 1940) was a co-founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a leader in the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins, a Freedom Rider, an associate of Martin Luther King Jr. in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the national coordinator of the Poor People’s Campaign.

One of the primary organizers of the 1965 Selma voting rights movement and the Selma-to-Montgomery marches, LaFayette relates his experiences of these historic initiatives in close detail with the help of co-author Kathryn Lee Johnson. When he arrived in 1963, Selma was a small, quiet, rural town. By 1965, it had made its mark in history and was nationally recognized as a battleground in the fight for racial equality and the site of one of the most important victories for social change in our nation.

James and Esther Cooper Jackson,” written by Sara Rzeszutek Haviland, is a dual biography that shows how one couple devoted their lives to the fight for equality, serving as career activists throughout the black freedom movement. Having grown up in Virginia during the depths of the Great Depression, the Jacksons saw a path to racial equality through the Communist Party. This choice in political affiliation would come to shape and define not only their participation in the black freedom movement but also the course of their own marriage as the Cold War years unfolded.

Haviland follows the couple through the years as they bore witness to economic inequality, war, political oppression and victory in the face of injustice. Her study reveals a portrait of a remarkable pair who lived during a transformative period of American history and whose story offers a vital narrative of persistence, love and activism across the long arc of the black freedom movement.

To see Gerald L. Smith talk about his work on The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia, watch the video playlist above. Video by UK Public Relations and Marketing.

The first reference book of its kind in the nation, The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia explores the diverse history of African-Americans throughout state’s rich past. Edited by Gerald Smith, the Theodore A. Hallam Professor and the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholar in Residence at the University of Kentucky Department of History; Karen Cotton McDaniel, professor emeritus at Kentucky State University; and John A. Hardin, professor of history at Western Kentucky University, the encyclopedia features more than 1,000 entries, capturing the black experience in the Commonwealth from earliest frontier years to the present.

Kentucky’s impact on the national scene is registered in the encyclopedia through an array of notable figures, such as writers William Wells Brown and bell hooks, reformers Bessie Lucas Allen and Shelby Lanier Jr., sports icons Muhammad Ali and Isaac Murphy, civil rights leaders Whitney Young Jr. and Georgia Powers, and entertainers Ernest Hogan, Helen Humes and Nappy Roots. Featuring entries on the individuals, events, places, organizations, movements and institutions that have shaped the state’s history since its origins, the volume also includes topical essays on the civil rights movement, eastern Kentucky coalfields, business, education and women.

UPK is the scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, representing a consortium that now includes all of the state universities, five private colleges and two historical societies. The editorial program of the press focuses on the humanities and the social sciences. Offices for the administrative, editorial, production and marketing departments of the press are found at UK, which provides financial support toward the operating expenses of the publishing operation.

UK is the University for Kentucky. At UK, we are educating more students, treating more patients with complex illnesses and conducting more research and service than at any time in our 150-year history. To read more about the UK story and how you can support continued investment in your university and the Commonwealth, go to: uky.edu/uk4ky. #uky4ky #seeblue

MEDIA CONTACT: Whitney Hale, 859-257-8716; whitney.hale@uky.edu