Jerald E Podair

On May 9, 1968, junior high school teacher Fred Nauman received a letter that would change the history of New York City. It informed him that he had been fired from his job. Eighteen other educators in the Ocean Hill—Brownsville area of Brooklyn received similar letters that day. The dismissed educators were white. The local school board that fired them was predominantly African-American. The crisis that the firings provoked became the most racially...

"From sit-ins at lunch counters to sit-ins on the Congress floor, marching in Selma to marching though the halls of the Capitol, John Lewis fought for what he believed in. The incredible civil rights activist had plenty of experience under his belt by the time he stood in front of a quarter of a million people as the youngest leader of the March on Washington."--