On July 24, 1964, chaos erupted in Rochester when the city’s Black community rebelled over rampant police brutality and racial inequity. The uprising led to a rebirth in Rochester’s fight for racial justice, rooted in the Black power movement, and radically changed the trajectory of the civil rights movement.

Join historian and author Laura Warren Hill for an overview of Rochester’s long civil rights history based on her new book, Strike the Hammer: The Black Freedom Struggle in Rochester, New York, 1940-1970. Hill’s work draws extensively on oral accounts of local movement participants, as well as records from the NAACP, SCLC, and the local FIGHT, offering rich and detailed stories of the area’s protest tradition.

Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing at the event.

Laura Warren Hill is Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies at Bloomfield College. She is coeditor of The Business of Black Power (University of Rochester Press, 2012) and has published in the Journal for the Study of Radicalism and the Journal of African American History. Follow her on Twitter @Mohojolo.

Want to take a deeper dive into the history of Rochester’s Black freedom struggle? Join our reading and discussion group! Weekly meetings from 12:30–2 pm on Saturdays from September 11–October 9.