Long Island has been in the corridors of almost all major turning points of American history, but Long Island has been overlooked as a battleground of the civil rights movement. Since early colonization by the English settlers in the 17th century, the shadow of slavery has bequeathed a racial caste system that has directly or indirectly been enforced. During World War II, every member of society was asked to participate in ending tyranny within European and Asian borders. Homeward-bound black soldiers expected a societal change in race relations; instead they found the same racial barriers they experienced prior to the war. They were refused homes in developments such as Levittown, denied mortgages, and had their children face limited educational opportunities. Collective efforts from organizations such as Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) employed civil disobedience as a tactic to fracture racial barriers.

Based on ten years of collaborative, community-based research, this book examines race and racism in a mixed-heritage Native American and African American community on Long Island’s north shore. Through excavations of the Silas Tobias and Jacob and Hannah Hart houses in the village of Setauket, Christopher Matthews explores how the families who lived here struggled to survive and preserve their culture despite consistent efforts to marginalize and displace them over the course of more than 200 years. He discusses these forgotten people and the artifacts of their daily lives within the larger context of race, labor, and industrialization from the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.  A Struggle for Heritage draws on extensive archaeological, archival, and oral historical research and sets a remarkable standard for projects that engage a descendant community left out of the dominant narrative. Matthews demonstrates how archaeology can be an activist voice for a vulnerable population’s civil rights as he brings attention to the continuous, gradual, and effective economic assault on people of color living in a traditional neighborhood amid gentrification. Providing examples of multiple approaches to documenting hidden histories and silenced pasts, this study is a model for public and professional efforts to include and support the preservation of historic communities of color. A volume in the series Cultural Heritage Studies, edited by Paul A. Shackel  Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Clarence Taylor is Professor of History and Black and Hispanic Studies at Baruch College and Professor of History at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. --Book Jacket.

An account of how the women’s rights movement found fertile ground on Long Island and succeeded thanks to the suffragettes’ classic grassroots campaign. For seventy-two years, American women fought for the right to vote, and many remarkable ladies on Long Island worked tirelessly during this important civil rights movement. The colorful—and exceedingly wealthy—Alva Vanderbilt Belmont was undoubtedly the island’s most outspoken and controversial advocate for woman suffrage. Ida Bunce Sammis, vigorous in her efforts, became one of the first women elected to the New York legislature. Well-known Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, worked with countless other famous and ordinary Long Islanders to make her mother’s quest a reality. Author Antonia Petrash tells the story of these and other women’s struggle to secure the right to vote for themselves, their daughters and future generations of Long Island women.

Uncovers the ways the United States government responds to natural and human-induced disasters in relation to race over the past eight decades When the images of desperate, hungry, thirsty, sick, mostly black people circulated in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it became apparent to the whole country that race did indeed matter when it came to government assistance. In The Wrong Complexion for Protection, Robert D. Bullard and Beverly Wright place the government response to natural and human-induced disasters in historical context over the past eight decades. They compare and contrast how the government responded to emergencies, including environmental and public health emergencies, toxic contamination, industrial accidents, bioterrorism threats and show that African Americans are disproportionately affected. Bullard and Wright argue that uncovering and eliminating disparate disaster response can mean the difference between life and death for those most vulnerable in disastrous times.

On February 5th, 1946, the Ferguson brothers were concluding a night out celebrating Charles Ferguson's reenlistment in the Army... Charles, wearing his military uniform, walked with his brothers Alphonso, Joseph, and Richard towards the Freeport Bus Terminal to go home. A provisional Freeport police officer named Joseph Romeika stopped the brothers over a disorderly conduct complaint. Words were exchanged, and Officer Romeika killed Charles, Alphonso and shot Joseph within minutes of the initial stop. Following the unarmed shooting, Romeikia was acquitted despite changing stories of eyewitnesses. Discover how the shooting became a catalyst for civil rights efforts and immortalized in a Woody Guthrie protest song.

A TIME BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • The first major biography of one of our most influential judges—an activist lawyer who became the first Black woman appointed to the federal judiciary—that provides an eye-opening account of the twin struggles for gender equality and civil rights in the 20th Century. • “Timely and essential."—The Washington Post “A must-read for anyone who dares to believe that equal justice under the law is possible and is in search of a model for how to make it a reality.” —Anita Hill With the US Supreme Court confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson, “it makes sense to revisit the life and work of another Black woman who profoundly shaped the law: Constance Baker Motley” (CNN). Born to an aspirational blue-collar family during the Great Depression, Constance Baker Motley was expected to find herself a good career as a hair dresser. Instead, she became the first black woman to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court, the first of ten she would eventually argue. The only black woman member in the legal team at the NAACP's Inc. Fund at the time, she defended Martin Luther King in Birmingham, helped to argue in Brown vs. The Board of Education, and played a critical role in vanquishing Jim Crow laws throughout the South. She was the first black woman elected to the state Senate in New York, the first woman elected Manhattan Borough President, and the first black woman appointed to the federal judiciary. Civil Rights Queen captures the story of a remarkable American life, a figure who remade law and inspired the imaginations of African Americans across the country. Burnished with an extraordinary wealth of research, award-winning, esteemed Civil Rights and legal historian and dean of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Tomiko Brown-Nagin brings Motley to life in these pages. Brown-Nagin compels us to ponder some of our most timeless and urgent questions--how do the historically marginalized access the corridors of power? What is the price of the ticket? How does access to power shape individuals committed to social justice? In Civil Rights Queen, she dramatically fills out the picture of some of the most profound judicial and societal change made in twentieth-century America.