The civil rights movement that spanned the years following the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 through the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 marked a watershed period for human rights in America. An Eyewitness History of the Civil Rights Movement covers the key years of 1954-1965 in detail and provides hundreds of firsthand accounts of the movement, drawn from letters, speeches, newspaper editorials, and press statements.

Among the eyewitness testimonies included are those from: Martin Luther King Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Malcolm X, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Rosa Parks, Ralph Abernathy. and many more.