Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington. Autobiography of an influential spokesman and former slave, who became a major figure in the struggle for equal rights.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. In Depression-era California, two migrant workers dream of better days on a spread of their own, until an act of unintentional violence leads to tragic consequences.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett. The story of African-American maids raising whiteCaucasian children in Mississippi during the 1960's Civil Rights Movement.
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. Traces the life of the Jewish girl who hid with seven other people in an attic for two years in Nazi-occupied Holland, and chronicles her day-to-day life in a diary.