LibGuides: Civil Rights: Secondary Sources

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Civil Rights Books and Treatises

Use the Law Library catalog to find treatises and books that include sections pertinent to civil rights law. See the suggested subject headings below.

The following print resources on civil rights law are available in the NCCU School of Law Library.

Adolescence, Discrimination, and the Law by Roger J. R. Levesque
Call Number: HQ796 .L3475
ISBN: 9781479815586
Publication Date: 2015-05-29
In the wake of the civil rights movement, the legal system dramatically changed its response to discrimination based on race, gender, and other characteristics.
Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Litigation by Sheldon H. Nahmod
Call Number: KF1325.C58 N342
ISBN: 0836612167
Publication Date: 1997-01-01
This treatise brings together materials on constitutional law, federal courts, local government law, damages, attorneys' fees, & interpretation of the statute in Section 1983 actions. Numerous relevant forms & litigation checklists are provided in the text.
Civil Rights in American Law, History, and Politics by Austin Sarat (Editor)
Call Number: KF4755 .C58
ISBN: 9781107039292
Publication Date: 2014-02-13
Civil Rights in American Law, History, and Politics charts the ambiguous and contested meanings of civil rights in law and culture and confronts important questions about race in contemporary America.
Dispossession by Pete Daniel
Call Number: HD8039.F32 U626 2013
ISBN: 9781469602011
Publication Date: 2013-03-29
Between 1940 and 1974, the number of African American farmers fell from 681,790 to just 45,594--a drop of 93 percent. In his hard-hitting book, historian Pete Daniel analyzes this decline and chronicles black farmers' fierce struggles to remain on the land in the face of discrimination by bureaucrats in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He exposes the shameful fact that at the very moment civil rights laws promised to end discrimination, hundreds of thousands of black farmers lost their hold on the land as they were denied loans, information, and access to the programs essential to survival in a capital-intensive farm structure. More than a matter of neglect of these farmers and their rights, this "passive nullification" consisted of a blizzard of bureaucratic obfuscation, blatant acts of discrimination and cronyism, violence, and intimidation. Dispossession recovers a lost chapter of the black experience in the American South, presenting a counternarrative to the conventional story of the progress achieved by the civil rights movement.
An Idea Whose Time Has Come by Todd S. Purdum
Call Number: KF4744.515 1964 .P87
ISBN: 9780805096729
Publication Date: 2014-04-01
A top Washington journalist recounts the dramatic political battle to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the law that created modern America, on the fiftieth anniversary of its passage It was a turbulent time in America—a time of sit-ins, freedom rides, a March on Washington and a governor standing in the schoolhouse door—when John F. Kennedy sent Congress a bill to bar racial discrimination in employment, education, and public accommodations. Countless civil rights measures had died on Capitol Hill in the past.
A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction by Laura F. Edwards
Call Number: KF366 .E39 2015
ISBN: 1107008794
Publication Date: 2015-01-26
Although hundreds of thousands of people died fighting in the American Civil War, perhaps the war's biggest casualty was the nation's legal order. A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction explores the implications of this major change by bringing legal history into dialogue with the scholarship of other historical fields. Federal policy on slavery and race, particularly the three Reconstruction amendments, are the best-known legal innovations of the era. Change, however, permeated all levels of the legal system, altering Americans' relationship to the law and allowing them to move popular conceptions of justice into the ambit of government policy. The results linked Americans to the nation through individual rights, which were extended to more people and, as a result of new claims, were reimagined to cover a wider array of issues. But rights had limits in what they could accomplish, particularly when it came to the collective goals that so many ordinary Americans advocated.
Representing the Race by Kenneth W. Mack
Call Number: KF372 .M33 2012
ISBN: 9780674046870
Publication Date: 2012-04-17
Representing the Race tells the story of an enduring paradox of American race relations, through the prism of a collective biography of African American lawyers who worked in the era of segregation.
Sharing the Prize by Gavin Wright
Call Number: E185.615 .W69 2013
ISBN: 9780674049338
Publication Date: 2013-02-25
The civil rights movement was also a struggle for economic justice, one that until now has not had its own history. Sharing the Prize demonstrates the significant material gains black southerners made "in improved job opportunities, quality of education, and health care" from the 1960s to the 1970s and beyond.
Treatise on constitutional law : substance and procedure by Ronald D. Rotunda, John E. Nowak
Call Number: KF4550 .R63 2012
multi- volume treatise on constitutional law.

Encyclopedias

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Civil Rights by Charles D. Lowery; John F. Marszalek (Editor); Thomas Adams Upchurch (Editor-In-Chief)
Call Number: E185.61 .E54 2003
ISBN: 031332171X
Publication Date: 2003-12-30
The African American struggle for freedom and equality is one of the truly heroic elements of American history. Yet even today, African Americans as a whole still don't fully share in the American dream. This encyclopedia explores the struggle's successes and setbacks, from emancipation to the beginning of the 21st century.
Civil Rights in the United States by Waldo E. Martin (Editor); Patricia Sullivan (Editor)
Call Number: E184.A1 C47 2000
ISBN: 0028647653
Publication Date: 2000-02-18
This 2-volume work examines the efforts of our diverse nation to secure civil rights for all its people including African-Americans, Native-Americans, Chicanos, women, Asian-Americans, workers, Gays & Lesbians, children, seniors, and numerous others.

Study Aids

Section 1983 Litigation by Michael G. Collins
Call Number: KF1325.C58 C65 2011
ISBN: 9780314920201
Publication Date: 2010-11-17
Coverage includes the statute's modern revival in Monroe v. Pape, municipal liability, individual officer and sovereign immunity, excessive force litigation, choice of law, state and federal court jurisdiction, remedies, and attorney's fees, There are also chapters on federal officer liability and the relationship between habeas corpus and section 1983. A helpful tool for practitioners, students, judges, and their clerks, or anyone wishing to get up to speed on this complex, ever-changing topic.
Examples and Explanations for Constitutional Law by Alan Ides; Christopher N. May; Simona Grossi
Call Number: KF4749 .I34 2013
ISBN: 9781543805635
Publication Date: 2018-12-17
A favorite classroom prep tool of successful students that is often recommended by professors, the Examples & Explanations (E&E) series provides an alternative perspective to help you understand your casebook and in-class lectures. Each E&E offers hypothetical questions complemented by detailed explanations that allow you to test your knowledge of the topics in your courses and compare your own analysis. Here's why you need an E&E to help you study throughout the semester: Clear explanations of each class topic, in a conversational, funny style. Features hypotheticals similar to those presented in class, with corresponding analysis so you can use them during the semester to test your understanding, and again at exam time to help you review. It offers coverage that works with ALL the major casebooks, and suits any class on a given topic. The Examples & Explanations series has been ranked the most popular study aid among law students because it is equally as helpful from the first day of class through the final exam.
Barron and Dienes' Constitutional Law in a Nutshell, 8th by Jerome A. Barron; C. Thomas Dienes
Call Number: KF4550.Z9 B35 2009
ISBN: 0314281940
Publication Date: 2013-05-20
This new 8th edition of CONSTITUTIONAL LAW IN A NUTSHELL serves as an updated guide and summary of constitutional law. Expert authors summarize judicial review and its limits, national legislative powers, state power in American federalism, Congress and the executive power, due process of law, equal protection, freedom of expression and religion, state action, and controversial Supreme Court cases.
Mastering Constitutional Law by John C. Knechtle; Christopher J. Roederer
Call Number: KF4550 .K542 2015
ISBN: 9781611633993
Publication Date: 2015-02-09
This book covers the essential elements of constitutional law in a condensed framework. This book's concise, up-to-date, user-friendly approach is refreshing. Whether students are studying for constitutional law exams or the bar exam, this book offers a highly readable yet thorough coverage of the subject.

Periodicals

Legal periodicals contain articles, often written by scholars, that analyze and criticize the law. These articles contain numerous citations to primary law.

Use the following databases to find legal periodicals.

HeinOnline HeinOnline is a subscription database. The Law Journal Library contains more than 1,800 legal periodicals.

LegalTrac LegalTrac is a periodical index. Search by subject using the term "civil rights".

Lexis+Access requires user name and password. Add "Legal Resource Index" to the search. Enter the terms "civil rights".

Westlaw Edge Access requires user name and password. Search the Law Reviews & Journals database.

The periodicals below are focused on civil rights. Find these titles and others on HeinOnline.

Harvard Journal on Racial and Ethnic Justice
Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties

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Civil Rights

More Ways to Contact Us

Civil Rights Books and Treatises

Encyclopedias

Study Aids

Periodicals