The big bang : Brown vs Board of Education and beyond : the autobiography of Oliver W. Hill, Sr.
(Adult Reference)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 365-367) and index.

In writing this book I had several objectives in mind. First, I wish to correct the mistaken notion that the African American civil rights movement started in the 1960s with the sit-ins or perhaps a bit earlier in Montgomery, Alabama with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Contrary to popular belief, the African American civil rights struggle dates back to the mid-seventeenth century when an African American slave woman fought for the freedom of her child by bringing a lawsuit asserting that the child was free because the father was a free Negro. Contemporaneous with her action was a lawsuit initiated by a black slave for freedom from a black slaveholder. From those beginnings, Negroes have engaged in an unrelenting struggle for human freedom and dignity employing a variety of responses including: running away, nonviolent protests, and armed insurrections. In addition, Negroes have participated with courage and valor in all armed conflicts involving the United States from colonial days to the present. In this book, I will discuss (among other things) the civil rights struggle in the twentieth century. For now, I wish to point our that Virginia is an example of the pervasive unremitting difficulties that Negroes have had in obtaining full protection of their constitutional rights. -- Page xxiv.