In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King asked a question that is still hauntingly poignant: “Where do we go from here?”

We invite interested scholars, activists and social critics to submit essay proposals reflecting on that question for Looking Back: Legacies and Lessons of the Civil Rights Movement. This volume has already been green-lighted by the University of Georgia Press for 2008 publication. It will offer a broad, comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach to its subject matter that will make it appropriate for courses in African-American Studies, Africana Studies, American Studies, Cultural Theory, History and Sociology. This is not intended, however, to be a book exclusively about African-Americans; rather, we wish to reflect on the Civil Rights Movement’s multiplicity of meanings in the twenty-first-century world.

The primary audience for Looking Back will be students and teachers whose work and classes focus on the Civil Rights Movement, its impact and its aftermath. The successful submission will be provocative but accessible to undergraduates and groups and individuals outside of traditional academic settings. Readers interested in contemporary politics, educational reform, the current state of race relations or popular culture should find something interesting and informative in this volume.

The broad categories in which the essays are grouped will provide multiple points of entry for readers from a wide array of backgrounds. We envision that the anthology will include fifteen to eighteen essays from numerous disciplinary perspectives placed into six broad categories:
• culture
• economics
• gender and sexuality
• politics and law
• education
• race relations

Potential essay subjects could include:
 civil rights and the evolution of urban education
 racial and identity politics at the turn of the twenty-first century
 the emergence and sustenance of gay and lesbian rights
 the relationship between black popular culture and current struggles for liberation
 the evolution and usage of race and race-language over the past forty years
 the global political and/or social impact of the civil rights movement
 the economic nexus of race and class
 post-movement perspectives on the debate over immigration
 a critical evaluation of the role of religion in social justice movements
 Race, racism and citizenship after 9/11

This is not a definitive list. We will gladly entertain other potential essay topics, especially those addressing Arab-American, Asian-American, Hispanic and/or Jewish communities.

Interested potential participants should e-mail their CVs and abstracts of no more than 500 words to lookingbackbook@yahoo.com by MARCH 1, 2007 at 5 PM CT. Questions about the project should also be sent to this address. We will review all proposals carefully and contact selected essayists as shortly thereafter as possible.

Charles W. McKinney, Jr., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of History
Rhodes College

Dwain C. Pruitt, Ph.D.
Coordinator for General Education
Morgan State University