It’s one thing to be at the center of a culture-shifting event, and something else entirely to continue to live your life while the rest of the world reacts to that event — and you — for the rest of your life. You are not only changed by the event itself, but continue to be shaped by the reactions that others have to it, and they way they interpret what you have done.

In her portrait of Rosa Parks, Jeanne Theoharis invites her readers to distinguish between these two things, and in so doing, she leads us to re-think who Parks was, what it means to be an activist, and the line between person and symbol. The introduction to the book, entitled “National Honor/Public Mythology: The Passing of Rosa Parks,” lays out the various two-dimensional images of this very three dimensional woman, and from there Theoharis unpacks her story.

And what a story it is.

Anthony Arnove got to know Howard Zinn’s distinctive voice when he collaborated with Zinn on “The People Speak.” As a result, Arnove was selected by the Howard Zinn Trust to edit four decades of his speeches. Although Zinn’s remarks are in text form, his passion, his energy, his humor, and his desire for long-term systemic change jump off the page and inspire the reader.

Zinn’s legacy is inspirational to progressives who believe in healing the world on behalf of the public good. War and the reckless accumulation of wealth – two of the most central features to the American zeitgeist – were anathema to Zinn, who celebrated a just, multi-cultural, egalitarian society.

Recently, while standing in an hour-long U.S. Customs line at Washington Dulles, I pulled out Slow Democracy. Listening to others complain about the untenable situation as we crisscrossed back and forth, I read, holding up the book title for all to see. Finally someone said, “What is that book about?” I delivered a succinct summary, consciously using tools I had just learned to include diversity, to all within earshot. What followed was a splendid example of slow democracy.

People rallied from jetlag, shook off fatigue, spoke over wailing babies, and listened to each other share stories and experiences about an issue close to all our hearts: the democracy crisis in America. I was inspired to see in action the main contentions in Slow Democracy: i.e., people care about democracy and want to bring it back to the local level.

Danielle McGuire, the prizewinning author and assistant professor of history at Wayne State University, has written a beautifully crafted and richly researched testimony of the hidden transcript of the Civil Rights Movement. 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 makes a powerful case for re-imagining the Civil Rights Movement in the South through the lens of sexual violence. This path-breaking book spotlights incidents of sexual assault from the early 1940s to the mid 1970s. Rather than remaining secreted, these brutal attacks inspired community protests among African Americans and their white allies. These grassroots struggles of resistance to white supremacy helped initiate the wider Civil Rights Movement that emerged after World War II and which eventually forced the national government to end racial segregation and black disfranchisement. Also, these community-based networks of support provided the infrastructure for the more familiar history of civil rights activities in Montgomery and Selma, Alabama, Jackson, Mississippi, Tallahassee, Florida and other southern cities.

Glenn Beck’s various endeavors are so superficial and insincere it’s difficult to understand those who fall for his scams. America, of course, has a long tradition of hucksterism. We are a credulous folk, ready to believe in any old snake oil despite the fact that they always fail.