When we think of American civil rights, we tend to focus on the mid 20th-century and the likes of Martin Luther King Jr and Rosa Parks, who fought for the rights of black people in an era of segregation. But, in his revelatory new book, Before the Movement, which has recently been shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize, Dylan Penningroth tells a much longer and broader story, beginning in the era of slavery and focusing on everyday legal matters that historians have often overlooked. Rob Attar speaks to Dylan to find out more about this little-known aspect of black American history.

(Ad) Dylan Penningroth is the author of Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2023). Preorder it now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Before-Movement-Hidden-History-Rights/dp/1324093102/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty.

Listen to the first episode of our podcast series on the US civil rights movement of the mid 20th century here: https://link.chtbl.com/QhlMnTrM.

The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine.

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