Artifacts from the American past

"On February 1, 1960, four young black men sat down at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and staged a nonviolent protest against segregation. At that time, many restaurants in the South did not serve black people. Soon, thousands of students were staging sit-ins in 55 states, and within six months, the lunch counter at which they'd first protested was integrated. How did a lunch counter become a symbol of civil rights? Readers will find out the answer to this question and what an artifact can tell us about U.S. civil rights history"--Provided by publisher.

"With the stroke of a pen, President Abraham Lincoln freed the South's enslaved people in the midst of the brutal U.S. Civil War. Or did he? Who did the Emancipation Proclamation really free? What effect did it have on the course of the Civil War? And what became of the inkstand with which he wrote the famous document? Find the answers to these questions and discover more of what an artifact can tell us about history"--Back cover.