Words of Protest, Words of Freedom: Poetry of the American Civil Rights Movement and Era

Words of Protest, Words of Freedom: Poetry of the American Civil Rights Movement and Era. Edited by Jeffrey Lamar Coleman. (Durham, N.C., and London: Duke University Press, 2012. Pp. [xviii], 358. Paper, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-8223-5103-0; cloth, $89.95, ISBN 978-0-8223-5092-7.) Jeffrey Lamar Coleman's twenty-year labor of love fills an unsettling gap: Words of Protest, Words of Freedom: Poetry of the American Civil Rights Movement and Era is the first collection of poetry that emerged from the context of post-1954 civil rights struggles. After a brief introduction to the anthology, Coleman opens each of his fourteen...