A More Beautiful and Terrible History by Jeanne Theoharris offers a reappraisal of the civil rights movement, adding depth and nuance to the familiar outline presented in PBS documentaries and films like Selma.  We learn that Rosa Parks not simply an accidental protester but a lifelong criminal justice activist and radical; that Martin Luther King, Jr.  challenged not only Southern sheriffs but Northern liberals; and Coretta Scott King not merely only a “helpmate” but a peace activist who edged her husband in that direction.  Blood at the Root by patrick Phillips examines the hardening of racial lines in a small town in Georgia.