Bhamwiki:Reading list

This is a reading list of books and primary sources which are particularly valuable to understanding historical foundations for the Birmingham District of today.

Chronological list

• Beecher, John (February 1933) "Annual Report to the Stockholders". The New Masses, p. 8
• Leighton, George R. (August 1937) "Birmingham, Alabama: The City of Perpetual Promise". Harpers Magazine. No. 1407. pp. 225-242. Republished in Five Cities: The Story of their Youth and Old Age (also published as America's Growing Pains: The Romance, Comedy & Tragedy of Five Great Cities) New York: Harper & Brothers. pp. 100-139
• Blakely, Hunter B. (1953) Religion in Shoes; Brother Bryan of Birmingham. Richmond, VA: John Knox.
• The Birmingham Metropolitan Audit: Preliminary Report. (1960) Louisville, Kentucky: Southern Institute of Management
• Henley, John C., Jr (1960) This is Birmingham: The Founding and Growth of an American City. Birmingham: Southern University Press
• King, Martin Luther (May 1963) "Letter from Birmingham Jail". Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: American Friends Service Committee, reprinted in Why We Can't Wait (1964) New York: Harper Collins ISBN 0060123958
• Morgan, Charles (1964) A Time to Speak: The Story of a Young American Lawyer's Struggle for His City, and for Himself. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. ISBN 0030505763
• Pioneers Club (1968) Early Days in Birmingham. Southern University Press.
• Brown, Virginia Pounds & Jane Porter Nabers, eds. (1970) Mary Gordon Duffee's Sketches of Alabama. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press ISBN 081735011X
• Glaze, Andrew (1981) "I Am The Jefferson County Courthouse", in I Am The Jefferson County Courthouse & Other Poems. Thunder City Press ISBN ISBN 0918644119
• White, Marjorie Longenecker (1981) The Birmingham District: An Industrial History and Guide. Birmingham: Birmingham Historical Society
• Durr, Virginia Foster (1985) Outside the Magic Circle: The Autobiography of Virginia Foster Durr. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press
• Hemphill, Paul (1993) Leaving Birmingham: Notes of a Native Son. New York: Viking Books ISBN 067084778X
• Lewis, M. David (1994) Sloss Furnaces and the Rise of the Birmingham District: An Industrial Epic. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press ISBN 9780817307080
• Cruse, Howard (1995) Stuck Rubber Baby Paradox Press. ISBN 1563892553
• Fisher, Virginia E. (1995) Building on a Vision Birmingham, Alabama: Crane Hill Publishers ISBN 1881548147
• McKiven, Henry M. (1995) Iron and Steel: Class, Race, and Community in Birmingham, Alabama, 1875-1920. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press ISBN 0807845248
• LaMonte, Edward Shannon (1995) Politics and Welfare in Birmingham, 1900-1975. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press ISBN 9780817307547
• Whiting, Marvin Yeomans (1997) One Great City: The Campaign for Consolidated Government, Birmingham, Alabama, 1970-1971. Birmingham: Birmingham Public Library
• Fallin, Wilson (1997) The African American Church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1815-1963: A Shelter in the Storm New York: Garland Publishing ISBN 0815328834
• Manis, Andrew (1999) A Fire You Can't Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0817309683
• Hemphill, Paul (2000) Leaving Birmingham: Notes of a Native Son. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press ISBN 9780817310226
• Bass, S. Jonathan (2001) Blessed Are The Peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the "Letter from Birmingham Jail. Baton Rouge: LSU Press. ISBN 0807126551
• McWhorter, Diane (2001) Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. New York, New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0743226488
• Stewart, Shelly (2002) The Road South: A Memoir. Warner Books. ISBN 0446530271
• Connerly, Charles E. (2005) The Most Segregated City in America: City Planning and Civil Rights in Birmingham, 1920-1980. Charlottesville, Virginia: University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0813923344
• McWilliams, Tennant S. (2007) New Lights in the Valley: The Emergence of UAB. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press ISBN 9780817315467
• Fazio, Michael W. (2010) Landscape of Transformations: Architecture and Birmingham, Alabama. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press ISBN 9781572336872

Short reads

• Beecher, John (February 1933) "Annual Report to the Stockholders". The New Masses, p. 8
• King, Martin Luther (May 1963) "Letter from Birmingham Jail". Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: American Friends Service Committee, reprinted in Why We Can't Wait (1964) New York: Harper Collins ISBN 0060123958
• Pioneers Club (1968) Early Days in Birmingham. Southern University Press.
• Randall, Dudley (1968) "Ballad of Birmingham", from Cities Burning. Detroit, Michigan: Broadside Press
• Cruse, Howard (1995) Stuck Rubber Baby Paradox Press. ISBN 1563892553

Personal memoirs

• Morgan, Charles (1964) A Time to Speak: The Story of a Young American Lawyer's Struggle for His City, and for Himself. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. ISBN 0030505763
• Durr, Virginia Foster (1985) Outside the Magic Circle: The Autobiography of Virginia Foster Durr. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press
• Hemphill, Paul (1993) Leaving Birmingham: Notes of a Native Son. New York: Viking Books ISBN 067084778X
• Stewart, Shelly (2002) The Road South: A Memoir. Warner Books. ISBN 0446530271
• Arrington Richard (2008) There's Hope for the World: The Memoir of Birmingham, Alabama's First African-American Mayor. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press
• Rice, Condoleezza (2010) Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family. New York, New York: Crown Archetype ISBN 0307587878
• Isom, Chervis (2015) The Newspaper Boy: Coming of Age in Birmingham, Alabama During the Civil Rights Era. Self-published ISBN 9780996178709

Works of fiction set in Birmingham

• Cohen, Octavus Roy (1925) Bigger and Blacker. Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown & Company
• Cohen, Octavus Roy (1938) Florian Slappey. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company
• Percy, Walker (1966) The Last Gentleman New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Gaines, Charles (1972) Stay Hungry
• Flagg, Fannie (1987) Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe New York: Random House ISBN 039456152X
• Cruse, Howard (1995) Stuck Rubber Baby Paradox Press. ISBN 1563892553
• Aaron, Jason & Jason Latour (2015-) Southern Bastards. Image Comics

Books specific to the 1960s Civil Rights Movement

• King, Martin Luther (May 1963) "Letter from Birmingham Jail". Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: American Friends Service Committee, reprinted in Why We Can't Wait (1964) New York: Harper Collins ISBN 0060123958
• Raines, Howell (1977) My Soul Is Rested. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons
• Smith, Petric J. (1994) Long Time Coming: An Insider's Story of the Birmingham Church Bombing That Rocked The World. Birmingham: Crane Hill Publishers
• Eskew, Glenn T. (1997) But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press ISBN 9780807846674
• Manis, Andrew (1999) A Fire You Can't Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0817309683
• Bass, S. Jonathan (2001) Blessed Are The Peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the "Letter from Birmingham Jail. Baton Rouge: LSU Press. ISBN 0807126551
• McWhorter, Diane (2001) Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. New York, New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0743226488
• Sikora, Frank (2005) Until Justice Rolls Down: The Birmingham Church Bombing Case. Tuscaloosa: Fire Ant Books ISBN 9780817352684
• Thorne, T. K. (2013) Last Chance for Justice: How Relentless Investigators Uncovered New Evidence Convicting the Birmingham Church Bombers. Chicago: Chicago Review Press ISBN 1613748671

Other lists

• Cather, Patrick (1993) Birmingham Bound: Opinionated and Often Irreverent Essays on the Fifty Most Important Books About Alabama's Largest City. Birmingham: Cather & Brown
• "UAB Civil Rights Commemoration Texts and Contexts" at uab.edu
• "Birmingham Reading List" at acanuckamuck.com