Books like At Canaan's edge by Taylor Branch

Contains primary source material.

A history of the Black Power movement in the United States traces the origins and evolution of the influential movement and examines the ways in which Black Power redefined racial identity and culture. With the rallying cry of "Black Power!" in 1966, a group of black activists, including Stokely Carmichael and Huey P. Newton, turned their backs on Martin Luther King's pacifism and, building on Malcolm X's legacy, pioneered a radical new approach to the fight for equality. [This book] is a history of the Black Power movement, that storied group of men and women who would become American icons of the struggle for racial equality. In the book, the author traces the history of the men and women of the movement, many of them famous or infamous, others forgotten. It begins in Harlem in the 1950s, where, despite the Cold War's hostile climate, black writers, artists, and activists built a new urban militancy that was the movement's earliest incarnation. In a series of character driven chapters, we witness the rise of Black Power groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panthers, and with them, on both coasts of the country, a fundamental change in the way Americans understood the unfinished business of racial equality and integration. The book invokes the way in which Black Power redefined black identity and culture and in the process redrew the landscape of American race relations.

A detailed chronicle of the civil rights movement from the late Eisenhower era to President Kennedy’s assassination.

The second volume of Taylor Branch's epic trilogy on the American Civil Rights Movement, narrating the climactic struggles of the Civil Rights Movement at its zenith.

The Children traces the courageous journey of eight Black students who, through Reverend James Lawson's nonviolence workshops, joined the civil rights movement of the 1960s and helped transform American society.

An account of the life of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. based on personal interviews, his personal papers, FBI documents, etc.

A biography of Bayard Rustin, focusing on his work as a civil rights organizer and strategist, including his role in the Montgomery bus boycott and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Mary L. Dudziak’s analysis of how Cold War policies influenced civil rights in the United States.