Political Advocacy Audiobooks | Politics

A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School

When fourteen-year-old Carlotta Walls walked up the stairs of Little Rock Central High School on September 25, 1957, she and eight other black students only wanted to make it to class. But the journey of the “Little Rock Nine,” as they came to be known, would lead the nation on an even longer and much more turbulent path, one that would challenge prevailing attitudes, break down barriers, and forever change the landscape of America. Descended from a line of proud black landowners and businessmen, Carlotta was raised to believe that education was the key to success. She embraced learning and excelled in her studies at the black schools she attended throughout the 1950s. With Brown v. Board of Education erasing the color divide in classrooms across the country, the teenager volunteered to be among the first black students–of whom she was the youngest–to integrate nearby Central High School, considered one of the nation’s best academic institutions. But for Carlotta and her eight comrades, simply getting through the door was the first of many trials. Angry mobs of white students and their parents hurled taunts, insults, and threats. Arkansas’s governor used the National Guard to bar the black students from entering the school. Finally, President Dwight D. Eisenhower was forced to send in the 101st Airborne to establish order and escort the Nine into the building. That was just the start of a heartbreaking three-year journey for Carlotta, who would see her home bombed, a crime for which her own father was a suspect and for which a friend of Carlotta’s was ultimately jailed–albeit wrongly, in Carlotta’s eyes. But she persevered to the victorious end: her graduation from Central. Breaking her silence at last and sharing her story for the first time, Carlotta Walls has written an inspiring, thoroughly engrossing memoir that is not only a testament to the power of one to make a difference but also of the sacrifices made by families and communities that found themselves a part of history. A Mighty Long Way shines a light on this watershed moment in civil rights history and shows that determination, fortitude, and the ability to change the world are not exclusive to a few special people but are inherent within us all.

Carlotta Walls Lanier, Lisa Frazier Page (Author), Carlotta Walls Lanier (Narrator)

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Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition o

How two centuries of Indigenous resistance created the movement proclaiming 'Water is life' In 2016, a small protest encampment at the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, initially established to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, grew to be the largest Indigenous protest movement in the twenty-first century. Water Protectors knew this battle for native sovereignty had already been fought many times before, and that, even after the encampment was gone, their anticolonial struggle would continue. In Our History Is the Future, Nick Estes traces traditions of Indigenous resistance that led to the #NoDAPL movement. Our History Is the Future is at once a work of history, a manifesto, and an intergenerational story of resistance.

Nick Estes (Author), Bill Andrew Quinn, William Andrew Quinn (Narrator)

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Vote for US: How to Take Back Our Elections and Change the Future of Voting

In contrast to the anxiety surrounding our voting system, with stories about voter suppression and manipulation, there are actually quite a few positive initiatives toward voting rights reform. Professor Joshua A. Douglas, an expert on our electoral system, examines these encouraging developments in this inspiring book about how regular Americans are working to take back their democracy, one community at a time. Told through the narratives of those working on positive voting rights reforms, Douglas includes chapters on expanding voter eligibility, easing voter registration rules, making voting more convenient, enhancing accessibility at the polls, providing voters with more choices, finding ways to comply with voter ID rules, giving redistricting back to the voters, pushing back on big money through local and state efforts, using journalism to make the system more accountable, and improving civics education. Unusually accessible for a lay audience and thoroughly researched, this book gives anyone fed up with our current political environment the ideas and tools necessary to affect change in their own communities.

Joshua A. Douglas (Author), Keith Sellon-Wright (Narrator)

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Victoria Woodhull. Visionaria, sufragista, y primera mujer candidata a la Presidencia de los EE.UU

'El libro mantiene el foco en su heroína, y reconoce que la historia de Victoria es también amena y que ella tenía un instinto natural para el espectáculo', New York Times. 'La fascinante biografía de Victoria Woodhull documenta las extaordinadas medidas que esta feminista radical tomó para cambiar su vida y la sociedad de la época', Francine Prose (Elle). Pocas mujeres han sido tan sorprendentes, tan fascinantes y perseverantes…Victoria Claflin Woodhull, más tarde conocida como Victoria Woodhull Martin (1838–1927), fue una líder del movimiento por el sufragio femenino. En 1872, se convirtió en la 1ª mujer en presentar su candidatura para la presidencia de los Estados Unidos. Además de su labor como activista a favor de los derechos de las mujeres y de las reformas laborales, apoyaba el amor libre, que para ella significaba tener libertad para casarse, divorciarse y tener hijos sin la interferencia del gobierno. Pasó dos veces de la pobreza a la riqueza y luego de unirse al movimiento espiritualista, hizo una fortuna como corredora de bolsa en Nueva York. Aunque la autoría de varios de sus artículos está en disputa (algunos de sus escritos y discursos fueron colaboraciones entre ella, sus ayudantes y su segundo esposo, el coronel James Blood), su rol como representante de los movimientos sociales por el voto femenino y demás causas a favor de los sectores desfavorecidos fue muy poderoso. Junto con su hermana, fue la 1ª mujer que operó una financiera en Wall Street, y ambas fueron de las primeras mujeres que fundaron un periódico, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, que comenzó a publicarse en 1870. En su etapa política más activa, adquirió notoriedad como la 1ª mujer que presentó su candidatura para la presidencia de los EE.UU, como representante del partido Equal Rights, que abogaba por el sufragio femenino y la igualdad de derechos. Días antes de las elecciones, fue acusada de obscenidad por haber publicado un artículo sobre el supuesto romance adúltero entre el prominente ministro Henry Ward Beecher y Elizabeth Tilton y arrestada, lo que sumó una gran cobertura mediática a su candidatura. Generaciones después, muchas de estas reformas han sido implementadas y algunas de sus ideas y sugerencias aún están en debate. Por primera vez al español, esta biografía reveladora. Grabado en español ibérico (España).

Mary Gabriel (Author), Olga María García Panadero (Narrator)

Audiobook

Bending Toward Justice: The Birmingham Church Bombing that Changed the Course of Civil Rights

"For 40 years, justice had gone undone in the brutal murder of four young girls in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church...Doug Jones said no more. Justice had to be done. Those young girls deserved it. Their families deserved it. The community needed it. It took courage, commitment, and persistence. And-maybe most of all-heart." - Former Vice President Joe Biden This program is read by the author. The story of the decades-long fight to bring justice to the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, culminating in Sen. Doug Jones' prosecution of the last living bombers. On September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed. The blast killed four young girls and injured twenty-two others. The FBI suspected four particularly radical Ku Klux Klan members. Yet due to reluctant witnesses, a lack of physical evidence, and pervasive racial prejudice the case was closed without any indictments. But as Martin Luther King, Jr. famously expressed it, 'the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.' Years later, Alabama Attorney General William Baxley reopened the case, ultimately convicting one of the bombers in 1977. Another suspect passed away in 1994, and US Attorney Doug Jones tried and convicted the final two in 2001 and 2002, representing the correction of an outrageous miscarriage of justice nearly forty years in the making. Jones himself went on to win election as Alabama's first Democratic Senator since 1992 in a dramatic race against Republican challenger Roy Moore. Bending Toward Justice is a dramatic and compelling account of a key moment in our long national struggle for equality, relayed by an author who played a major role in these events. A distinguished work of legal and personal history, this audiobook is destined to take its place alongside other canonical civil rights histories.

Doug Jones (Author), Doug Jones, Rick Bragg (Narrator)

Audiobook

Outsiders: Why Difference is the Future of Civil Rights

Contemporary discrimination has changed in important ways from the forms it took in the 1960s, the era in which our civil rights law system originated. Previously, the primary targets of discrimination were groups: African Americans, women, and Latinos, among others. The goal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to integrate marginalized groups into civic life, shatter ceilings, and break down barriers. The law sought to make us better people and America a more equal nation. And it has. Discrimination against groups still occurs, but affected groups can marshal the rights regime to target and eliminate discriminatory policies. The challenge today, however, is to protect the individual, and our civil rights laws struggle with this. The people most likely to face discrimination today are those who do not or cannot conform to the whims of society. They are the freaks, geeks, weirdos, and oddballs among us. They do and wear strange things, have strange opinions, and need strange accommodations. Outsiders is filled with stories that demand attention, stories of people whose search for identity has cast them to the margins. Their stories reveal that we have entered a new phase of civil rights and need to refresh our vision.

Zachary Kramer (Author), Keith Sellon-Wright (Narrator)

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How To Be A Woman: A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation

Caitlin Moran (Author), , Caitlin Moran, Full Cast (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Man Who Was Saturday: The Extraordinary Life of Airey Neave

SOLDIER, ESCAPER, SPYMASTER, POLITICIAN - Airey Neave was assassinated in the House of Commons car park in 1979. Forty years after his death, Patrick Bishop's lively, action-packed biography examines the life, heroic war and death of one of Britain's most remarkable 20th century figures. Airey Neave was one of the most extraordinary figures of his generation. Taken prisoner during WW2, he was the first British officer to escape from Colditz and using the code name 'Saturday' became a key figure in the IS9 escape and evasion organisation which spirited hundreds of Allied airmen and soldiers out of Occupied Europe. A lawyer by training, he served the indictments on the Nazi leaders at the Nuremburg war trials. An ardent Cold War warrior, he was mixed up in several of the great spy scandals of the period. Most people might consider these achievements enough for a single career, but he went on to become the man who made Margaret Thatcher, mounting a brilliantly manipulative campaign in the 1975 Tory leadership to bring her to power. And yet his death is as fascinating as his remarkable life. On Friday, 30 March 1979, a bomb planted beneath his car exploded while he was driving up the ramp of the House of Commons underground car park, killing him instantly. The murder was claimed by the breakaway Irish Republican group, the INLA. His killers have never been identified. Patrick Bishop's new book, published to mark the 40th anniversary of his death, is a lively and concise biography of this remarkable man. It answers the question of who killed him and why their identities have been hidden for so long and is written with the support of the Neave family.

Patrick Bishop (Author), Tim Frances (Narrator)

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On Freedom

In this pathbreaking book, New York Times bestselling author Cass Sunstein asks us to rethink freedom. He shows that freedom of choice isn't nearly enough. To be free, we must also be able to navigate life. People often need something like a GPS device to help them get where they want to go-whether the issue involves health, money, jobs, children, or relationships. In both rich and poor countries, citizens often have no idea how to get to their desired destination. That is why they are unfree. People also face serious problems of self-control, as many of them make decisions today that can make their lives worse tomorrow. And in some cases, we would be just as happy with other choices, whether a different partner, career, or place to live-which raises the difficult question of which outcome best promotes our well-being. Accessible and lively, and drawing on perspectives from the humanities, religion, and the arts, as well as social science and the law, On Freedom explores a crucial dimension of the human condition that philosophers and economists have long missed-and shows what it would take to make freedom real.

Cass R. Sunstein (Author), Johnny Heller (Narrator)

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Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christian America

New York Times bestselling author David Horowitz exposes not only the progressive war against Christianity but also a war against America and its founding principles-which are Christian in their origin. Dark Agenda is about an embattled religion, but, most of all, it is about our imperiled nation. Tackling a broad range of issues from prayer in the schools to the globalist mindset, Horowitz traces the anti-Christian movement to its roots in communism. When the communist empire fell, progressives did not want to give up their utopian anti-God illusions, so instead they merely changed the name of their dream. Instead of "communism," progressives have re-branded their movement as "social justice." Dark Agenda shows how progressives are prepared to use any means necessary to stifle their opponents who support the concepts of religious liberty that America was founded on and how the battle to destroy Christianity is really the battle to destroy America.

David Horowitz (Author), Phil Paonessa (Narrator)

Audiobook

Salvar a Sadie

Un paseo por la montaña no presagia nada bueno para Sadie, una perra de cría a quien pocas veces se le da la oportunidad de pasear; su tarea es parir, pero ese día su dueño le ha sacado al bosque y, cuando está bien adentro, se ha parado y poniéndose frente a ella, ha sacado algo de la chaqueta. ¡Bang!, suena, y un dolor insoportable recorre a Sadie. Sin aún comprender qué está pasando, ha visto el cañón de una escopeta y a su asesino, su propio dueño, cómo la disparaba entre los ojos y en la columna vertebral. Dos tiros y todo se volvió negro. Pero Sadie no murió, su afán por vivir era demasiado fuerte. Unas personas escucharon los disparos, se acercaron al lugar y la llevaron a un refugio de animales. Allí, Joal Derse Dauer se encontró a Sadie desahuciada por los veterinarios. Pero Joal tampoco se rindió. El desprecio por la vida de Sadie despertó en ella la necesidad de no dejar que el maltratador tuviese la última palabra. Acudió a varios expertos, hasta que un veterinario le dijo que había posibilidades, que Sadie tenía futuro y comenzó una campaña de financiación online para su tratamiento. Hoy en día Sadie y Joal son felices y ambas inspiran al mundo con su historia de amor, respeto a la diversidad y segundas oportunidades. Este relato nos indigna ante la barbarie de algunos. Pero, sobre todo, conmueve y nos transmite una enorme alegría por vivir y compartir. Sadie se ha convertido en EE.UU. en la mascota oficial contra los abusos y por la aceptación de la diversidad, y pone de manifiesto el valor intrínseco de cada vida y el tremendo poder del cariño para curar casi cualquier cosa. Compartiendo, Sadie y Joal transformaron sus vidas porque dar es siempre recibir y nuestra propia existencia, un milagro. Grabado en español ibérico (España).

Elizabeth Ridley, Joal Darse Dauer (Author), Marta Pérez (Narrator)

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We Want to Negotiate: The Secret World of Kidnapping, Hostages and Ransom

Starting in late 2012, Westerners working in Syria -- journalists and aid workers -- began disappearing without a trace. A year later the world learned they had been taken hostage by the Islamic State. Throughout 2014, all the Europeans came home, first the Spanish, then the French, then an Italian, a German, and a Dane. In August 2014, the Islamic State began executing the Americans -- including journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, followed by the British hostages. Joel Simon, who in nearly two decades at the Committee to Protect Journalists has worked on dozens of hostages cases, delves into the heated hostage policy debate. The Europeans paid millions of dollars to a terrorist group to free their hostages. The US and the UK refused to do so, arguing that any ransom would be used to fuel terrorism and would make the crime more attractive, increasing the risk to their citizens. We Want to Negotiate is an exploration of the ethical, legal, and strategic considerations of a bedeviling question: Should governments pay ransom to terrorists?

Joel Simon (Author), Rob Shapiro (Narrator)

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Political Advocacy Audiobooks in Politics