Strike the Hammer: The Black Freedom Struggle in Rochester, New York, 1940–1970
Laura Warren Hill
Cornell University Press
Hill examines Rochester's long Civil Rights history and, drawing extensively on oral accounts of the northern, urban community, offers rich and detailed stories of the area's protest tradition. Augmenting oral testimonies with records from the NAACP, SCLC, and the local FIGHT, Strike the Hammer paints a compelling picture of the foundations for the movement. Hill leads us to consider the social, political, and economic environment more than fifty years ago and how that founding generation of activists left its mark on present-day Rochester.