Eagles, Charles W. “Toward New Histories of the Civil Rights Era.” Journal of Southern History. 66(2000): 815-848. A review of civil rights historiography which argues that younger historians, who were not eyewitnesses to the movement, are now showing more balance and detachment in chronicling the era.

Huggins, Nathan Irvin. “Martin Luther King, Jr.: Charisma and Leadership.” Journal of American History 74(1987): 477-481. Huggins uses King’s career to examine the difficulties historians sometime experience in dealing with a compelling individual leader.

Lawson, Steven F., and Charles Payne. Debating the Civil Rights Movement. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998. Part of the “Debating 20th Century America” Series. Two prominent historians of the civil rights movement debate their differences over interpretations. Their essays are supplemented by useful documentary sources.

O'Brien, Michael. “Old Myths/New Insights: History and Dr. King.”: History Teacher 22(1988): 49-66. An article geared to the needs of high school and college classroom teaching.

If you need more information on the grassroots, community-level organization of the civil rights movement, you can look at these books:

Eskew, Glenn T. But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. An analysis of the interaction of the community leaders and national organizations in this critical city.

Theoharis, Jeanne F., and Komozi Woodard, eds. Groundwork: Local Black Freedom Movements in America. New York: New York University Press, 2005. A collection of thirteen essays focussing on different local civil rights movements.

Additional information on the role of women in the civil rights movement can be found in:

Collier-Thomas, Bettye, and V.P. Franklin, eds. Sisters in the Struggle: African-American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement. New York: New York University Press, 2001.

Robnett, Belinda. How Long? How Long?: African-American Women In The Struggle For Civil Rights. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

For more background on the Civil Rights Congress and Southern Conference, see these books:

Horne, Gerald. Communist Front?: The Civil Rights Congress, 1946-1956. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1988.

Krueger, Thomas A. And Promises to Keep: The Southern Conference for Human Welfare, 1938-1948. Nashville, Vanderbilt University Press, 1967.

Reed, Linda. Simple Decency & Common Sense: The Southern Conference Movement, 1938-1963. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.

You can find more materials on the fascinating Mississippi “Freedom Summer” of 1964 here:

Freedom On My Mind. Videorecording. Berkeley, C.A.: Clarity Educational Productions; San Francisco, CA: California Newsreel, 1994.

McAdam, Doug. Freedom Summer. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Randall, Herbert. Faces of Freedom Summer. Randall’s photographs supplemented by text by Bobs M. Tusa. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001.