This eloquent and provocative autobiography, originally published in 1972, records a day by day, sometimes hour by hour, compassionate account of the events that took place in the streets, meetings, churches, jails, and in people’s hearts and minds in the 1960s civil rights movement.
Contents
Foreword by Julian Bond
Preface
Letter to My Sisters and Brothers
Book One: A Constant Struggle
1. Driven Insane
2. Childhood and Coca-Cola
3. Roots of the Black Manifesto
4. Ready to Kill
5. A Family Fight
6. Dreams and a .38 Cold
7. Corrupt Black Preachers
8. You're in the Army Now
9. Okinawa--A Bad Dream
10. Feeling Like a New Car
11. God is Dead: A Question of Power
12. Keep Your Pride
13. Time For Action
14. The great White Rat
15. Georgia Mae Hard Times
16. Forgetting the People
17. Diary of Fayette
18. Lucretia Collins: "The Spirit of Nashville"
19. Violence or Nonviolence
20. The Klan and a Frame-up
21. The Kissing Case
22. Robert Williams Versus Roy Wilkins
23. No Room at the Swimming Pool
24. Eruption in Newtown
25. Moment of Death
26. Strong Black Women
27. Inside the Monroe Jail
28. Justice, Monroe Style
Book Two: A Band of Sisters and Brothers, in a Circle of Trust
29. Miss Ella Baker
30. McComb, Mississippi
31. The Circle Begins
32. Inside a Cubicle
33. Albany, Georgia
34. Attack the Power Center
35. Broke, Busted, But Not Disgusted
36. Terror in the Delta
37. Ulcers and Carnegie Hall
38. Noes for the Greenwood Jail
39. Freedom Walk
40. Betrayal in Birmingham
41. Selma: Diary of a Freedom Fighter
42. Machine Guns in Danville
43. The March on Washington
44. Americus, Georgia
45. Selma Freedom Day
46. The Freedom Vote
47. The "Big Five" and SNCC
48. Inside the Mississippi Summer Project
49. The 1964 Democratic Convention
50. Profiles in Treachery
51. African Interlude
52. Internal Disorder
53. Power for Black People
54. Kingston Springs
55. Black Power Strikes
56. Dynamite in Philadelphia
57. The Bureau of Internal Revenue Attacks
58. Rock Bottom
59. The Indivisible Struggle
60. The Arab-Israeli Dispute
61. Blacks Assume Leadership
62. The Organization of African Unity
63. Literation Will Come from a Black Thing
64. The Black Panther Party
65. The Black Manifesto
Postscript
Reviews
"An important documentary autobiography by a man who became one of the most important black leaders in the struggle for civil rights and freedom, this volume is moving, dramatic, at times almost overwhelming."
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Library Journal
"A searing, jolting document that will leave the reader full of that savage indignation that tears the heart."
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New York Times
"Acrid and eloquent. . . . this memoir draws on Forman’s experience as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee."
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Publishers Weekly
Advance Praise
"James Forman’s The Making of Black Revolutionaries is a classic, a personal, no holds barred inside look at the civil rights movement. Written by an insider, it offers an invaluable look at the politics and the personalities that shaped the movement and continue to shape American life."
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Julian Bond, Julian Bond
"The Making of Black Revolutionaries was the most ambitious, politically astute, and emotionally engrossing memoir to emerge from the 1960s. Anyone interested in understanding the present state of Black politics should read this outstanding example of engaged historical analysis."