From the end of postwar Reconstruction in the South to an analysis of the rise and fall of Black Power, acclaimed historian Adam Fairclough presents a straightforward synthesis of the century-long struggle of black Americans to achieve civil rights and equality in the US. Fairclough chronicles the tradition of protest that led to the formation of the NAACP, and the often conflicting strategies of Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey and Martin Luther King Jr., presenting their achievements alongside the persistence of racial and economic inequalities.