A Dream of Freedom: The Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968
Diane McWhorter

Karlen actually recommended this book to me after she reviewed it for ROYAL and I read it cover to cover yesterday. You HAVE to get this book! I got mine from my book fair, so if you're having a scholastic fair soon, make sure they send you a copy and buy it with your profits.

The author was a white child of privilege growing up in the South during the civil rights movement. At the end, she even relates her initial fear that her father was involved with the Klan! (BTW, she's pretty sure now that he wasn't, but knows he was involved in some segregation activities and says he's now a "stranger to the bigot he was" back then.)

Anyway, the book is divided by year, with indepth descriptions of many of the events that happened. It's filled with photographs and is fun just to look at. It's pretty big -- coffee table sized -- but I have yet to read a more comprehensive and age appropriate account of the civil rights struggle. I thought I knew a lot, but I learned tons from this book.