Celebrate National Historically Black Colleges & Universities Week - September 17 through 23 and Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month - September 15 through October 15

My Race to Freedom: A Life in the Civil Rights Movement

My Race to Freedom: A Life in the Civil Rights Movement

$25.95
$25.95

The civil rights movement was defined by figures thrust into positions of importance; be they participants in a sit-in, Freedom Riders, or marchers in protests, those involved with the movement didn’t imagine being in that position ten years earlier. Gwendolyn Patton’s life centered around Detroit, Michigan, until she came to Montgomery in 1956 to visit relatives and found herself in the midst of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. That experience sparked a lifetime of civil rights activism, as Patton became a member of the Montgomery Improvement Association, supported the Freedom Riders, organized in Tuskegee, and participated in the Selma-to-Montgomery march. Patton came to call Montgomery her home, and the movement and its legacy became the most important aspect of her life. My Race to Freedom is the story of how a young woman found her voice and used it to help her community.

About the Author

Born and raised just outside of Detroit, Michigan, Dr. Gwendolyn Patton moved to the city of Montgomery at the age of sixteen, immediately becoming a leader in the Montgomery Improvement Association. Patton's activism would continue throughout her young life, continuing in her roles as a founding member of the Black Alabama Democratic Conference and as a youth organizer in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership Council. Dr. Patton earned her bachelor's in English and history at Tuskegee; her master's in history at Antioch College; and her doctorate in political history and higher education administration at Union Graduate School. After decades of leadership in higher education around the country, Patton returned to Montgomery in 1977, where she served as the city's coordinator for the National Historic Voting Rights Trail and on its National Advisory Council. Patton passed away in 2017 at the age of seventy-three.

Robert Parris Moses is an educator and an icon of the 1960s civil rights movement, known especially for his work with SNCC on voter education and registration in Mississippi. He is a graduate of Hamilton College and Harvard University. As the founder of the Algebra Project, he has received a MacArthur Fellowship and many other awards.
  • Language : English
  • Paperback : 384 pages
  • Item Weight : 1.5 pounds
  • Dimensions : 6 x 1 x 9 inches
Back to Schomburg Center Public Programs