Branch, Taylor, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63, Touchstone Books, 1989.

The first book of a two-volume series, this formidable social history profiles Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as the other key players and events that helped shape the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Dittmer, John, Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi, University of Illinois Press, 1995.

This history covers the fight for racial equality in Mississippi from the post-World War II years through 1968.

Hampton, Henry, ed., Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s, Bantam Books, 1991.

Creating a fascinating narrative, the creator and executive producer of the PBS series The Eyes on the Prize draws on nearly one thousand interviews with activists, politicians, officials, and ordinary people who took part in the civil rights movement.

Hine, Darlene Clark, ed...