We Will Be Heard - Voices in the Struggle for Constitutional Rights Past and Present by Bud and Ruth Schultz examines controversial history as seen through the eyes of those who lived them.

A few of these events are familiar to readers, such as the work of civil rights activists, Vietnam war protests, and attacks on Kent State students by National Guard members. For people not yet born when these events took place, a look at how the no-fly list came into play rounds out the field.

For Barbara Olshansky, she didn't make the list for the typical reason. It was 2002, not long after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Emotions ran high, but there were some who wanted to see peace rather than fighting back, as the Bush administration had planned. A clash was bound to happen. Barbara's suspicions were proven after six, herself included, from the Center for Constitutional Rights were pulled aside for a "random" search at the airport. Readers can decide for themselves whether or not the checks were deliberate.

Prior to Reagan taking office, the biggest policy stories to make news had to do with Watergate. Nixon resigned, but some may not realize things started with the Pentagon Papers. When Daniel Ellsberg released these documents showing the public had been misinformed about U.S. involvement in Vietnam, his psychoanalyst's office was raided for potential blackmail usage. It didn't work, but the effort continued.

Norma Becker got into the Vietnam protest movement in 1965, during a time when police were none too happy. She remembers well when they charged into the crowd during a speech from Dean Rusk, then Secretary of State. Protesters got hurt, but Norma was never asked to give her statement as an eyewitness even though she had filed a complaint.

Fred Shuttlesworth still thinks of a time when African Americans were trying to gain equality with everyone else. Others did not feel the same way. To make matters worse, a good many were in law enforcement.

Perhaps the most insidious form of repression came out of the House Committee of Un-American Activities. While some, such as Ring Lardner, testified before this panel, others not in the spotlight lost their jobs. The concept was to expose the 'menace' of Communism. Was there any proof of a threat? Hardly. Of course, that didn't stop Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover from making it top priority. Work must have been slow.

Close to one hundred first-hand accounts snuggle within the pages of this book. Both fascinating and often appalling, readers will be entranced by those who made history and lived to tell about it.