Fight for Freedom

Americans—both black and white—need more books like Harvard Sitkoff’s moving account of the fierce “struggle for black equality” that consumed the nation from the late ’50s until the recent past.

The opening chapter, “Up From Slavery” (recalling the title of Booker T. Washington’s autobiography), is an incisive account of the second-class status forced upon black Americans “by force, intimidation,…statute,” and custom, wit...