In Freedom Rights: New Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement, editors Danielle L. McGuire and John Dittmer follow Lawson's example, bringing together the best new scholarship on the modern civil rights movement. The work expands our understanding of the movement by engaging issues of local and national politics, gender and race relations, family, community, and sexuality. The volume addresses cultural, legal, and social developments and also investigates the roots of the movement. Each essay highlights important moments in the history of the struggle, from the impact of the Young Women's Christian Association on integration to the use of the arts as a form of activism. Freedom Rights not only answers Lawson's call for a more dynamic, interactive history of the civil rights movement, but it also helps redefine the field.
Danielle L. McGuire, assistant professor at Wayne State University, is the author of At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Race and Resistance—A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. She lives in Detroit, Michigan. John Dittmer, professor emeritus at DePauw University, is the author of The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care. He lives in Fillmore, Indiana.