Freedom Riders
1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice: Oxford University Press: Pivotal Moments in US History
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Freedom Riders
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Narrated by:
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Mirron Willis
About this listen
The saga of the Freedom Riders is an improbable, almost unbelievable story. In the course of six months in 1961, 450 Freedom Riders expanded the realm of the possible in American politics, redefining the limits of dissent and setting the stage for the civil rights movement.
In this new version of his encyclopedic Freedom Riders, Raymond Arsenault offers a significantly condensed and tautly written account. With characters and plot lines rivaling those of the most imaginative fiction, this is a tale of heroic sacrifice and unexpected triumph. Arsenault recounts how a group of volunteers - Blacks and Whites - came together to travel from Washington, DC, through the Deep South, defying Jim Crow laws in buses and terminals and putting their lives on the line for racial justice. News photographers captured the violence in Montgomery, shocking the nation and sparking a crisis in the Kennedy administration.
Here are the key players - their fears and courage, their determination and second thoughts, and the agonizing choices they faced as they took on Jim Crow - and triumphed. Winner of the Owsley Prize, this publication is timed to coincide with the airing of the American Experience miniseries documenting the Freedom Rides.
Listen to more titles in the Pivotal Moments series.©2011 Raymond Arsenault (P)2011 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Editorial reviews
If you didn’t pay attention in 10th grade history, here’s your second chance to learn about one of the most pivotal events in the Civil Rights movement — but you won’t have the urge to fall asleep in narrator Mirron Willis’ class. Raymond Arsenault’s detailed and chronological account of the Freedom Rides of 1961 begins in 1948 with the story of Irene Morgan, a Black woman who boarded a bus in Virginia and sat in the only empty seat, which happened to be in front of a white couple — and against the law. She refused to move when asked by the bus driver and set the wheels in motion for a critical case that climbed all the way to the Supreme Court and made segregated interstate travel illegal. Little known, but crucial facts like these lay the foundation for what led a group of 450 interracial people to ride a bus through some of the most violent and racist cities in the Jim Crow South for six months in 1961.
Mirron Willis, with a powerful James Earl Jones-esque voice, expertly narrates the hard facts, yet still conveys the mix of fear, passion, and determination of the cast of riders committed to a worthy cause. His strong enunciation is appropriately like that of a history professor — you can almost picture him lecturing in front of a room of rapt students — and it’s a lesson you won’t soon forget. His commanding oration combined with the vivid details of the harrowing journey, the violence the group encountered, and their unwavering strength in the face of adversity paint such a clear picture that it’s almost as if you’re watching a movie.
If you’re looking for a book with strong lead characters and loads of suspense, where the good guys win in the end, Freedom Riders won’t disappoint. And it’s even more memorable and astounding, because it’s true. —Colleen Oakley
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Story5 out of 5 stars 77
In the second volume of his three-part history, a monumental trilogy that began with Parting the Waters, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Taylor Branch portrays the Civil Rights Movement at its zenith, recounting the climactic struggles as they commanded the national stage. Beginning with the Nation of Islam and conflict over racial separatism, Pillar of Fire takes the listener to Mississippi and Alabama: Birmingham, the murder of Medgar Evers, the "March on Washington," the Civil Rights Act, and more.
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1 out of 5 stars
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the audio does not match with the book
- By Katie on 10-09-14
By: Taylor Branch
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Bearing the Cross
- Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
- By: David J. Garrow
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 34 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 211
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 160
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 161
Winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, this is the most comprehensive book ever written about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. David J. Garrow had unrestricted access to Martin Luther King's personal papers, to thousands of pages of newly released FBI documents and more than 700 interviews with King's closest friends and enemies.
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4 out of 5 stars
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great but long
- By Thomas on 04-29-10
By: David J. Garrow
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Eyes on the Prize
- America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965
- By: Juan Williams, Julian Bond - introduction
- Narrated by: Sean Crisden
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 40
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Story5 out of 5 stars 39
From leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., to lesser-known figures such as Barbara Rose Johns and Jim Zwerg, each man and woman made the decision that something had to be done to stop discrimination. These moving accounts of the first decade of the civil rights movement are a tribute to the people, black and white, who took part in the fight for justice and the struggle they endured.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This is a must in every household.
- By victor mercer on 07-12-19
By: Juan Williams, and others
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Waging a Good War
- A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968
- By: Thomas E. Ricks
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 58
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story5 out of 5 stars 51
Thomas E. Ricks offers an utterly new perspective on America’s greatest moral revolution—the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s—and its legacy today. While the Movement has become synonymous with Martin Luther King Jr.’s ethos of nonviolence, Ricks draws on his deep knowledge of tactics and strategy to advance a surprising but revelatory idea: the greatest victories for Black Americans of the past century were won not by idealism alone, but through recruiting, training, discipline, and organization—the hallmarks of any successful military campaign.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I was born and raised in Alabama. Jim Crow Era.
- By Moses Pitts on 10-06-22
By: Thomas E. Ricks
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Malcolm X
- A Life of Reinvention
- By: Manning Marable
- Narrated by: G. Valmont Thomas
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,413
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,189
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,189
Of the great figure in 20th-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his own story, he became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and an icon, all before being felled by assassins' bullets at age 39. Through his tireless work and countless speeches he empowered hundreds of thousands of black Americans to create better lives and stronger communities while establishing the template for the self-actualized, independent African American man.
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5 out of 5 stars
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invites further reading on Malcolm X
- By connie on 05-14-11
By: Manning Marable
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The Race Beat
- The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation
- By: Gene Roberts, Hank Klibanoff
- Narrated by: Richard Allen
- Length: 21 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 171
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 121
Drawing on private correspondence, notes from secret meetings, unpublished articles, and interviews, veteran journalists Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff go behind the headlines and datelines to show how a dedicated cadre of newsmen - first black reporters, then liberal Southern editors, then reporters and photographers from the national press and the broadcast media - revealed to a nation its most shameful shortcomings and propelled its citizens to act.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A fascinating inside look at history
- By Ron on 09-22-09
By: Gene Roberts, and others
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The Defender
- How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America; from the Age of the Pullman Porters to the Age of Obama
- By: Ethan Michaeli
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 22 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
Giving voice to the voiceless, the Chicago Defender condemned Jim Crow, catalyzed the Great Migration, and focused the electoral power of black America. Robert S. Abbott founded the Defender in 1905, smuggled hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segregated South, and was dubbed a "Modern Moses", becoming one of the first black millionaires in the process.
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5 out of 5 stars
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There's an unexpected genius here
- By Porter on 01-19-19
By: Ethan Michaeli
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City of Scoundrels
- The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago
- By: Gary Krist
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 139
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 116
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 115
When 1919 began, the city of Chicago seemed on the verge of transformation. Modernizers had an audacious, expensive plan to turn the city from a brawling, unglamorous place into "the Metropolis of the World". But just as the dream seemed within reach, pandemonium broke loose and the city’s highest ambitions were suddenly under attack by the same unbridled energies that had given birth to them in the first place.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great History of a Great City
- By Cookie on 08-30-12
By: Gary Krist
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Alabama v. King
- Martin Luther King Jr. and the Criminal Trial That Launched the Civil Rights Movement
- By: David Fisher - contributor, Dan Abrams, Fred D. Gray
- Narrated by: Fred D. Gray, Korey Jackson
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 33
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 29
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Story5 out of 5 stars 29
The forgotten story of a criminal trial that brought national attention to a young defendant named Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as told by Fred D. Gray, Dr. King’s lawyer and friend, along with New York Times bestselling authors Dan Abrams and David Fisher. The audiobook concludes with an exclusive conversation between Fred Gray and Dan Abrams.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great History Lesson and Story
- By bnieman on 09-22-23
By: David Fisher - contributor, and others
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At the Dark End of the Street
- Black Women, Rape, and Resistance - A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power
- By: Danielle L. McGuire
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 112
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 87
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Story5 out of 5 stars 84
In this groundbreaking and important book, Danielle McGuire writes about the rape in 1944 of a 24-year-old mother and sharecropper, Recy Taylor, who strolled toward home after an evening of singing and praying at the Rock Hill Holiness Church in Abbeville, Alabama. Seven white men, armed with knives and shotguns, ordered the young woman into their green Chevrolet, raped her, and left her for dead. The president of the local NAACP branch office sent his best investigator and organizer to Abbeville. Her name was Rosa Parks.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Difficult topic, trigger warnings apply
- By Adam Shields on 08-03-22
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White Flight
- Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism
- By: Kevin M. Kruse
- Narrated by: Aaron Williamson
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 137
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 120
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 120
In this reappraisal of racial politics in modern America, Kevin Kruse explains the causes and consequences of "white flight" in Atlanta and elsewhere. Seeking to understand segregationists on their own terms, White Flight moves past simple stereotypes to explore the meaning of white resistance. In the end, Kruse finds that segregationist resistance, which failed to stop the civil rights movement, nevertheless managed to preserve the world of segregation and even perfect it in subtler and stronger forms.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Local history is important
- By Adam Shields on 10-02-19
By: Kevin M. Kruse
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Nine Days
- The Race to Save Martin Luther King Jr.'s Life and Win the 1960 Election
- By: Paul Kendrick, Stephen Kendrick
- Narrated by: Bill Andrew Quinn
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 36
Less than three weeks before the 1960 presidential election, 31-year-old Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested at a sit-in at Rich's Department Store in Atlanta. That day would lead to the first night King had ever spent in jail - and the time that King's family most feared for his life. Based on fresh interviews, newspaper accounts, and extensive archival research, Nine Days is the first full recounting of an event that changed the course of one of the closest elections in American history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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a fascinating, detailed, blow-by-blow approach
- By D. Littman on 01-29-21
By: Paul Kendrick, and others
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Medgar Evers: Mississippi Martyr
- By: Michael Vinson Williams
- Narrated by: Brandon Church
- Length: 19 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 50
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
This biography of a seminal civil rights leader draws on personal interviews from Myrlie Evers-Williams (Evers's widow), his two remaining siblings, friends, grade-school-to-college schoolmates, and fellow activists to elucidate Evers as an individual, leader, husband, brother, and father. Extensive archival work in the Evers Papers, the NAACP Papers, oral history collections, FBI files, Citizen Council collections, and the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Papers, to list a few, provides a detailed account of Evers's NAACP work and more.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible Narration
- By Estella Owoimaha on 10-02-17
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Killing a King
- The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel
- By: Dan Ephron
- Narrated by: Assaf Cohen
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 242
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 216
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 214
The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin remains the single most consequential event in Israel's recent history and one that fundamentally altered the trajectory for both Israel and the Palestinians. Killing a King relates the parallel stories of Rabin and his stalker, Yigal Amir, over the two years leading up to the assassination, as one of them planned political deals he hoped would lead to peace - and the other plotted murder.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Tragic history well presented.
- By Mmday on 02-28-16
By: Dan Ephron
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Song in a Weary Throat
- Memoir of an American Pilgrimage
- By: Pauli Murray, Patricia Bell-Scott - Introduction by
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 19 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 81
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Story5 out of 5 stars 81
Poet, memoirist, labor organizer, and Episcopal priest, Pauli Murray helped transform the law of the land. Arrested in 1940 for sitting in the whites-only section of a Virginia bus, Murray propelled that life-defining event into a Howard law degree and a fight against "Jane Crow" sexism. Now Murray is finally getting long-deserved recognition: The first African American woman to receive a doctorate of law at Yale, her name graces one of the university's new colleges.
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4 out of 5 stars
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great American shero
- By Coisge F Mccullough on 04-13-24
By: Pauli Murray, and others
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Black Against Empire
- The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party
- By: Joshua Bloom, Waldo E. Martin Jr.
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 673
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 576
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Story5 out of 5 stars 573
In Oakland, California, in 1966, community college students Bobby Seale and Huey Newton armed themselves, began patrolling the police, and promised to prevent police brutality. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement that called for full citizenship rights for blacks within the US, the Black Panther Party rejected the legitimacy of the US government and positioned itself as part of a global struggle against American imperialism.
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5 out of 5 stars
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the explanation of rise and fall Black Panther
- By Antwine Hurst on 03-24-17
By: Joshua Bloom, and others
What listeners say about Freedom Riders
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
- test
- 05-05-11
excellent book
this is a very good audio book, i suggest everyone should listen to this book. This is a great experience of listening audio book
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7 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- IGNACIO
- 06-16-20
Very informative and descriptive.
Stuff they didn't even teach us about in school. Very informative and descriptive. Many of the stories I've never heard about. These actions of civil rights should be taught in every school. Maybe we wouldn't be where we're at now. BLM
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Bogenbroom
- 02-18-18
Abbreviated version of an interesting story
The narrator sounds like a robot. The story is interesting, but some of the great characters seem like their lives aren't dealt with in much detail.
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2 people found this helpful