Books with author Richard Edward Wormser

Between 1880 and 1954, African Americans dedicated their energies, and sometimes their lives, to defeating segregation. During these times, characterized by some as "worse than slavery," African Americans fought the status quo, acquiring education and land and building businesses, churches, and communities, despite laws designed to segregate and disenfranchise them. White supremacy prevailed, but it did not destroy the spirit of the black community.Incorporating anecdotes, the exploits of individuals, first-person accounts, and never-before-seen images and graphics, The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow by Richard Wormser is the story of the African American struggle for freedom following the end of the Civil War. A companion volume to the four-part PBS television series, which took seven years to write, research, and edit, the book documents the work of such figures as the activist and separatist Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells, and W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. It examines the emergence of the black middle class and intellectual elite, and the birth of the NAACP.The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow also tells the stories of ordinary heroes who accomplished extraordinary things: Charlotte Hawkins Brown, a teacher who founded the Palmer Memorial Institute, a private black high school in North Carolina; Ned Cobb, a tenant farmer in Alabama who became a union organizer; Isaiah Montgomery, who founded Mound Bayou, an all-black town in Mississippi; Charles Evers, brother of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who fought for voter registration in Mississippi in the 1940s. And Barbara Johns, a sixteen-year-old Virginia student who organized a student strike in 1951. The strike led to a lawsuit that became one of the five cases the United States Supreme Court reviewed when it declared segregation in education illegal.As the twenty-first century rolls forward, we are losing the remaining survivors of this pivotal era. Rich in historical commentary and eyewitness testimony by blacks and whites who lived through the period, The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow is a poignant record of a time when indignity and terror constantly faced off against courage and accomplishment.

“All’s Fair…”, first published in 1937, is a fast-paced novel set in a hard-bitten mining town ruled by those with money and their corrupt politicians. A young labor leader, Mac, comes to the town determined to solve the murder of a fellow organizer and to end the stranglehold of the current bosses. A romance develops between Mac and Sue, the daughter of a mineowner. The situation becomes desperate when the miners strike and Sue disappears, and Mac vows to find her. Richard Wormser (1908-1977) was a prolific American author of pulp fiction, detective fiction, westerns, and screenplays.

Scorned by most of society, and treated as second-class citizens at best, hoboes wandered America in search of work. They usually traveled by "flipping a freight" and matching wits with the railroad police until they reached their destination or were booted off the train. Hoboes built railroads, harvested wheat, cut down trees, mined for gold, herded cattle - and then moved on. Yet hoboes and tramps had a tight-knit community. They wrote songs about themselves, had their own slang, sign language, and codes of law and honor. They stopped at hobo "jungles" to wash and shave, swap stories with old friends, and share meals. This remarkable book documents the fascinating history of these colorful characters.By the early 1900s, hobo culture was flourishing. Many of these dispossessed and exploited workers found inspiration in the labor movement and revolutionary politics. They had their own intellectuals and political heroes: Joe Hill, Emma Goldman, Bill Haywood, and Ben Reitman are just some of the legendary figures from the hobo era. Hobo colleges - temporary lecture halls - held debates on socialism, industrial law, political science, and economics. And though the reality of hobo life was often brutal and tragic, many hoboes considered their days on the road the most exciting time of their lives.

Between 1880 and 1954, African Americans dedicated their energies, and sometimes their lives, to defeating segregation. During these times, characterized by some as “worse than slavery,” African Americans fought the status quo, acquiring education and land and building businesses, churches, and communities, despite laws designed to segregate and disenfranchise them. White supremacy prevailed, but did not destroy, the spirit of the black community.Incorporating anecdotes, the exploits of individuals, first-person accounts, and never- before-seen images and graphics, The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow is the story of the African American struggle for freedom following the end of the Civil War. A companion volume to the four-part PBS television series, which took seven years to write, research, and edit, the book documents the work of such figures as the activist and separatist Benjamin “Pap” Singleton, anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells, and W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. It examines the emergence of the black middle class and intellectual elite, and the birth of the NAACP. The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow also tells the stories of ordinary heroes who accomplished extraordinary things: Charlotte Hawkins Brown, a teacher who founded the Palmer Memorial Institute, a private black high school in North Carolina; Ned Cobb, a tenant farmer in Alabama who became a union organizer; Isaiah Montgomery, who founded Mound Bayou, an all-black town in Mississippi; Charles Evers, brother of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who fought for voter registration in Mississippi in the 1940s. And Barbara Johns, a sixteen-year-old Virginia student who organized a student strike in 1951. The strike led to a lawsuit that became one of the five cases the United States Supreme Court reviewed when it declared segregation in education illegal.As the twenty-first century rolls forward, we are losing the remaining survivors of this pivotal era. Rich in historical commentary and eyewitness testimony by blacks and whites who lived through the period, The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow is a poignant record of a time when indignity and terror constantly faced off against courage and accomplishment.

From Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans fought the status quo, acquiring education and land, and building businesses, churches and communities, despite laws designed to segregate, terrorize, and disenfranchise them. White supremacy prevailed, but did not destroy, the spirit of the black community.Richard Wormser has been working on this important documentary for seven years. Worse Than Slavery will incorporate historical commentary and oral history along with more than 100 images, bringing the brutality and courage of the African American struggle for equality to life. Beginning with the period from 1865 to 1896, the book covers the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction, periods that held so much promise for black men and women. What followed was the dramatic rise of a successful black middle class and the determination of white supremacists to destroy this fledgling black political power. The years between World Wars I and II (1951 to1954) produced a period of black activism that ultimately resulted in the Brown vs. Board of Education decision which desegregated public schools.The book not only tells the stories of leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, but also portrays ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things, bearing witness to the determination and strength of their forebears.

Today, an estimated four to six million Muslims live in the United States. Yet Islam is still one of the most misunderstood and maligned religions in this country. Nes coverage of recent events such as the World Trade Center bombings and the war in Iraq spread one-sided, negative images of Muslims as terrorists and religious fanatics in America and abroad. In American Islam, Richard Wormser draws on interviews with Muslim teenagers to go beyond the headlines and provides a timely, unbiased look at this important segment of American society.Young Muslims speak out about everyday concerns -- family, school, relationships -- revealing how they maintain their identity and adapt their religious and cultural traditions to fit into America's more permissive society. A historical overview of Islam, an interpretation of the basic tenets of the Quran, and a close look at the growth of Islam in African-American communities rounds out the first-person accounts of dialy life.