Freedom Season

A kaleidoscopic narrative history of 1963, the pivotal moment in America’s long civil rights movement—the year of the March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and the assassinations of Medgar Evers and John F. Kennedy.

In Freedom Season, acclaimed historian Peniel E. Joseph offers a stirring narrative history of 1963, marking it as the defining year of the Black freedom struggle—a year when America faced a deluge of political strife and violence and emerged transformed.

Nineteen sixty-three opened with the centenary of the Emancipation Proclamation and ended with America in a state of mourning. The months in between brought waves of racial terror, mass protest, and police repression that shocked the world, inspired radicals and reformers, and forced the hands of moderate legislators. By year’s end the murders of John F. Kennedy, Medgar Evers, and four Black girls at a church in Alabama left the nation determined to imagine a new way forward. Alongside the stories of historical giants like James Baldwin and Martin Luther King Jr., Joseph uplifts the perspectives of less celebrated leaders like playwright Lorraine Hansberry and activist Gloria Richardson.

Over one heartbreakingly tumultuous year, America unraveled and remade itself as the world looked on. Freedom Season shows how the upheavals of 1963 planted the seeds for watershed civil rights legislation and renewed hope in the promise and possibility of freedom. 

Peniel E. Joseph is the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values, Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, and Associate Dean for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of award-winning books on African American history, including  The Sword and the Shield and Stokely: A Life. He lives in Austin, Texas. 

• Publisher:‎ Basic Books (May 20, 2025)
• Language:‎ English
• Hardcover:‎ 480 pages
• ISBN-13: 9781541675896
• Item Weight: ‎14.4 ounces
• Dimensions: 6.25 x 1.17 x 9.5 inches
• BISAC Categories: United States- 20th Century, African American, Ethnic Studies - African American Studies