Weary Feet, Rested Souls: A Guided History of the Civil Rights Movement

by Townsend Davis

Overview

"Weary Feet, Rested Souls is a valuable and beautiful road map to a landscape we must not forget."—Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund

Thirty years after the Civil Rights Movement transformed America, Weary Feet, Rested Souls brings the landscape of this compelling period of history back to life. Logging 30,000 miles of research and more than 100 hours of interviews with Civil Rights veterans, Townsend Davis has written both a history of the struggle and an indispensable traveler's guidebook to Civil Rights in the Deep South. Ranging from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s childhood neighborhood to Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three Civil Rights workers were murdered, to Selma and Birmingham and scores of other sites, Weary Feet, Rested Souls is a uniquely inspiring and deeply commemorative guide to the Movement and its heroes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393245424
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	03/03/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	432
File size:	15 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Townsend Davis is a writer and lawyer living in New York City. His articles have appeared in the New Republic, the Los Angeles Times, and the Charlotte Observer.

What People are Saying About This

Marian Wright Edelman

"Townsend Davis's splendid account of the Civil Rights Movement reminds us that young people play such a significant part in bringing about change. Yet children today feel disconnected from their proud history and are often unaware of the events and the people of the cataclysmic time not so long ago that gave them the rights and dignity which are now theirs to claim. Weary Feet, Rested Souls is a valuable and beautiful road map to a landscape we must not forget." -- President of hte Children's Defense Fund

David J. Garrow

"Even if -- especially if -- you've never read a single book on America's Black freedom struggle, read Townsend Davis's Weary Feet, Rested Souls. No other book on the movement offers a better 'sense of place,' and Weary Feet will allow you literally to follow in the footsteps of movent marchers and martyrs all the way from Arkansas to North Carolina. Weary Feet is a moving and accurate guide, and an invaluable contribution to civil rights history." -- Author of Bearin the Cross

Caroline Kennedy

"One of the most valuable lessons we can learn from the past is that people who did extraordinary things were much like us. I hope this guidebook will keep the history of the Civil Rights Movement alive, and help us carry on its work. I look forward to a trip south with Weary Feet, Rested Souls in hand." -- Coauthor of In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action

Editorial Reviews

Thanks in part to the book's superb graphic design, it advances a visual approach to historical memory that succeeds well. -- New York Times Book Review

Jason Berry

What Charles Blockson did in The Hippocrene Guide to the Underground Railroad (Hippocrene, 1994) in mapping escape routes from slavery, New York City writer and lawyer Davis does for the Civil Rights movement in the South from 1954 to 1968. Wending a path through Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, Davis marks sites of battles against segregation and of bases for building civil equality for black Americans. He sets the scene with maps and sketches of local history and adds human interest with boxed vignettes, photos, and updates of movement participants. An appendix of historic sites and a chronology reinforce both the focus on place and a sense of time in the movement. An engaging popular history and suitable travel companion, this book is recommended for collections for young adults or on civil rights, the contemporary United States, blacks, or the South.Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe

Library Journal

No other book on the movement offers a better 'sense of place,' and Weary Feet will allow you to follow in the footsteps of movement marchers all the way from Arkansas to North Carolina. Weary Feet is a moving and accurate guide, and an invaluable contribution to civil rights history.”

David J. Garrow