Product Description
Mississippi is a unique case study as a result of its long-standing defiance of federal civil rights legislation and the fact that nearly half its population was black and relegated to second-class citizenship. According to the vast majority of Mississippi daily press editorials examined between 1948 and 1968, the notion that blacks and whites were equal as races of people was a concept that remained unacceptable and inconceivable. While the daily press certainly did not advocate desegregation, in contrast to what many media critics have reported about the Southern press promoting violence to suppress civil rights activity, Mississippi daily newspapers never encouraged or condoned violence during the time periods under evaluation. Weill places coverage of these important events within a historical context, shedding new light on media opinion in the state most resistant to the precepts of the civil rights movement. ... Read more

Product Description
Drawing on scores of interviews with black and white tobacco workers in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Robert Korstad brings to life the forgotten heroes of Local 22 of the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural and Allied Workers of America-CIO. These workers confronted a system of racial capitalism that consigned African Americans to the basest jobs in the industry, perpetuated low wages for all southerners, and shored up white supremacy.

Galvanized by the emergence of the CIO, African Americans took the lead in a campaign that saw a strong labor movement and the reenfranchisement of the southern poor as keys to reforming the South--and a reformed South as central to the survival and expansion of the New Deal. In the window of opportunity opened by World War II, they blurred the boundaries between home and work as they linked civil rights and labor rights in a bid for justice at work and in the public sphere.

But civil rights unionism foundered in the maelstrom of the Cold War. Its defeat undermined later efforts by civil rights activists to raise issues of economic equality to the moral high ground occupied by the fight against legalized segregation and, Korstad contends, constrains the prospects for justice and democracy today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Wonderful work of civil rights and labor history
This book uses oral history, company, and union archives to tell a riveting story about an attempt by poor (mostly black) workers to build a union against heavy odds.This book tells us so much about twentieth century American history, and it does it with great skill.All the great themes of labor's downfall are here.The inability to organize the South.The racism and anti-communism of high union officials.The failure of Operation Dixie.The vicious backlash of employers and the Democratic party against the movement for working class power.This book is a great example of micro history used to illuminate important national trends.I cannot recommend a book more highly.

Fascinating history, important analysis--read it!
This is a terrific book--an important history that brings together a story of race, labor unions, economic change, politics, and culture, but never loses sight of the actual people involved.Very well written--not dry and academic like some history, but also very rich analytically.Buy it and read it!

Fabulous story, fabulous storytelling
In this wonderful book, African American tobacco workers tell their own story of civil rights struggle and union organizing.It is long, but so was the struggle, and I couldn't put it down.Oral interviews give us the black workers' own accounts, sending, for once, the white supremacists to the back of the bus.
Read it.You will find a South you never thought you would find. ... Read more

Product Description
A record of the American civil rights movement. Included are speeches by Martin Luther King Jr, and his "Letter from Birmingham City Jail", an interview with Rosa Parks, selections from "Malcolm X Speaks"; Black Panther Bobby Seale's "Seize the Time", a piece by Herman Badillo on the infamous Attica prison uprising; addresses by Harold Washington, Jesse Jackson, Nelson Mandela and much more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Interesting and Informative
I took a history of civil rights course in college, and this book was one of the required reading materials. I started reading it and couldn't put it down. I liked how the author included first hand accounts from individuals who actually lived during the civil rights movement. Before I read this book I only knew about two civil rights leaders- MLK Jr. and Malcolm X. I learned about other leaders and organizations such as Thurgood Marshall, SCLC, SNCC, and CORE. This is a must read because it will open your eyes to the civil rights struggle.

Another great one.
This was another one that I am glad I read, new stuff,and things you won't find any other place. A must read.

First Hand Documents Bring You There
When you get involved in studying political events and movements, ultimately there is going to be some disagreement on interpretations.While the Civil Righs Movement has suffered less revisionist history than many events of the last century, it is still valuable to go to the source documents and read about events in the words of those who participated in history or who made history. I agree that this book works well in tandem with another more narrative history, such as Eyes on the Prize, or Partin the Waters.But the compilers have done an excellent job of grouping by topics, with clear introductions putting the pieces that follow into proper place.I was surprised - I feared that this would be more dry of a read than it was. Instead I found myself pulled along, especially by some riveting first hand accounts of events such as the Attica riots. Another big plus for the book is that it brings the documents and the struggles into the 1980's, when first published.Many books ont he Civil Rights Movement cover until 1965, or 1968, this one keeps events in the 1970's and 80's relevant to what came before. I highly recommend this for anyone who is looking to feel as if they were there for these struggles, and understand our history.

Great Book to Begin Learning
This is a great book to get get a background on the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and 60's.I read it when I began trying to learn about the CRM and some of the key players.

A valued companion to the study of the Civil Rights Movement
I think that this book is a valued companion to Taylor Branch's epic work"Parting the Waters". Together, they make an unbeatable pair of study aids for one of America's most turbulent periods.

While P.T.W. is amore dispassionate third person chronicle, E.O.T.P. is more personallydriven.It brings to life individuals like Bayard Rustin, StokleyCarmichael, John Lewis and other giants (known and obscure) of themovement.Events from the Till lynching to the Attica riots as seenthrough the eyes of those on the scene (sometimes, those making thescene).

Fascinating reading. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1958, an African-American handyman named Jimmy Wilson was sentenced to die in Alabama for stealing two dollars. Shocking as this sentence was, it was overturned only after intense international attention and the interference of an embarrassed John Foster Dulles. Soon after the United States' segregated military defeated a racist regime in World War II, American racism was a major concern of U.S. allies, a chief Soviet propaganda theme, and an obstacle to American Cold War goals throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Each lynching harmed foreign relations, and "the Negro problem" became a central issue in every administration from Truman to Johnson.

In what may be the best analysis of how international relations affected any domestic issue, Mary Dudziak interprets postwar civil rights as a Cold War feature. She argues that the Cold War helped facilitate key social reforms, including desegregation. Civil rights activists gained tremendous advantage as the government sought to polish its international image. But improving the nation's reputation did not always require real change. This focus on image rather than substance--combined with constraints on McCarthy-era political activism and the triumph of law-and-order rhetoric--limited the nature and extent of progress.

Archival information, much of it newly available, supports Dudziak's argument that civil rights was Cold War policy. But the story is also one of people: an African-American veteran of World War II lynched in Georgia; an attorney general flooded by civil rights petitions from abroad; the teenagers who desegregated Little Rock's Central High; African diplomats denied restaurant service; black artists living in Europe and supporting the civil rights movement from overseas; conservative politicians viewing desegregation as a communist plot; and civil rights leaders who saw their struggle eclipsed by Vietnam.

Never before has any scholar so directly connected civil rights and the Cold War. Contributing mightily to our understanding of both, Dudziak advances--in clear and lively prose--a new wave of scholarship that corrects isolationist tendencies in American history by applying an international perspective to domestic affairs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

The Confluence of the Global and the Local
Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy is arguably the finest articulation of how international affairs influenced domestic issues. Cold War Civil Rights directly connects civil rights and the Cold War.In this book, Mary Dudziak interprets postwar civil rights as a Cold War feature. She contends that the Cold War facilitated key social changes, in particular desegregation. Dudziak use the 1958 case of an African American repairperson named Jimmy Wilson who was the death penalty in Alabama for stealing two dollars (Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights 3-6). Deplorable as this case and its resultant sentence was it was reversed upon intense international scrutiny and the intervention of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights 3-6). As a second case study, Dudziak looks at a segregated military defeating a racist regime in World War II. American racism was a major concern of US allies, a chief Soviet propaganda theme, and an obstacle to American Cold War goals throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights 47-48, 61-63, 65-66 and 77). Finally, every incident of lynching affected foreign relations, and "the Negro problem" became a core issue from Truman to Johnson administrations (Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights 11-15, and 203-216). Archival information, much of it newly obtainable, supports Dudziak's contention that civil rights were inextricably linked to Cold War foreign policy as civil rights activists gained tremendous cultural capital and voice as the US government sought to improve its international image. Contributing to our understanding of both civil rights and the Cold War., Dudziak also moves forward a new wave of scholarship that rights American history by applying a global perspective to a local event.

An enlightening book on public diplomacy
If you think Las Vegas tourist ads and "listening tours" are components of public diplomacy and international relations, you need to read this book. If you think media coverage is intense now, you need to read this book. Dudziak gets into the reality and impact of media coverage forty years ago and its impact on the global information war of the time that is remarkably similar to today: "Following World War II, anything that undermined the image of American democracy was seen as threatening world peace and aiding Soviet aspiration to dominate the world... Nations were divided between a way of life 'distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression' and a way of life that "relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms."

Dudziak looks at the impact of race and the civil rights movement in the United States on American public diplomacy and foreign policy. The impact of America's "color bar" on foreign relations is astonishing and Dudziak helps contextualize the movement and government responses within contemporary pressures.

Indiscriminate actions against foreign and American dignitaries reinforced the accessibility of race-based norms to all and played into Soviet propaganda and provided a painful counternarrative that impacted US foreign relations. The US Ambassador, Chester Bowles, to India, speaking in 1952 at Yale University said, "A year, a month, or even a week in Asia is enough to convince any perceptive American that the colored peoples of Asia and Africa, who total two-thirds of the world's population, seldom think about the United States without considering the limitations under which our 13 million Negroes are living."

As we attempted to project democracy and its emphasis on equality and freedom, in opposition to Soviet tyranny, discrimination in the US was well known beyond our borders. Dudziak presents "With Us or Against Us" examples with Louis Armstrong and Josephine Baker as examples, among others. In the case of Baker, State Department officers justified censorship and hardship imposed on Baker by discounting her personal beliefs. Her "derogatory" remarks "concerning racial discrimination in the United States" were deemed to be "presenting a distorted and malicious picture of actual conditions." If we do not practice democracy, how well will our promotion of it be received? This was a real question of the time that other history books ignore and was the very question Ambassador Bowles asked.

As Dudziak wrote, "Domestic difficulties were managed by US presidents with an eye toward how their actions would play overseas." Disingenuous or factually misleading statements to justify domestic policies and opinions are not the mainstay of any single generation. While not intending to be destructive to the nation, these policies have a severely detrimental affect on domestic cohesion and leadership within the foreign relations. Dudziak implies the race issue in the international press was the seed of negative views of the US. The golden temple of American democracy was seen as something falling short, even hypocritical. Locksley Edmunson, writing in 1973, could be speaking of today with our Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and alleged secret CIA prisons when he wrote, "Those states best technically equipped to maintain world order are not necessarily the ones whose credentials recommend them as the most appropriate guardians of a global conscience."

You can read different things out of Mary Dudziak's book. As a student of public diplomacy, my take-away centered on the impact on foreign policy, which the author does a good job investigating. The take-away? Practice what you preach, or at least be effective in making them think you're trying to.

Causes and Effects
Upon first consideration one would think that the reciprocal influences of the Cold War and American civil rights activity would be self-evident.Perhaps, but Dudziak's book is full of surprises and details how galling the "American Dilemma" was to U.S. foreign policy-makers and various presidents and how each responded to the concerns of African, Asian, American, and European countries regarding the United States civil rights struggle over several decades.Why was civil rights legislation important to American foreign policy?How was Eisenhower's response to school desegregation in Little Rock influenced by foreign perceptions?How did the international attention to civil rights activity affect John Kennedy's domestic policies? Why was the State Department so concerned about Asian and African criticisms of the United States' record on civil rights?How was the Civil Rights Act of 1965 viewed by the international community?How did the views of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X affect United States foreign policy efforts?Was the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to an American activist also an international signal that worried a president and the State Department?These questions and many more are answered by Dudziak.

Dudziak deserves recognition and commendations for clearly demonstrating that the United States civil rights movement had a global as well as a national impact on America's foreign policy efforts and placed the United States squarely between the demands of a persecuted domestic minority and the scrutiny of the nations to which it declared itself the leader of human rights, liberty, and freedom in contrast to the totalitarian regimes of communist countries.

This book is well worth reading and an important addition to the growing number of books on the history of race relations that was not, and is not,taught in school.Kudos to Dudziak for an important job well done.

Eye Opening and Important -- A Great Read!
Mary Dudziak revisits a familiar chapter in American history--the civil rights movement--but provides readers with a completely new perspective on it.

We know about the work that was being done in the streets.But now Dudziak helps us see the movement through the eyes of America's cold war policymakers.For them, civil rights was a foreign policy problem, and Dudziak helps us see how this explains many of the movements successes and (maybe more important) many of its defeats.

Essential reading for everyone interested in American history, civil rights, constitutional law (yes, even Brown v. Board of Education must be seen in light of this analysis), and foreign policy.

Excellent!
This book is fabulous.Clear and articulate, it reads like a story and explores an aspect of the civil rights movement most authors and historians have neglected.It is meticulously researched and filled with information from sources ranging from presidential telephone conversations to news wires to official publications.The civil rights movement cannot be fully understood without reflecting upon the information contained in this book. ... Read more

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Now abridged for courses, this edition of Hugh D. Graham's groundbreaking history of national policy during the battle for civil rights recreates the intense debates in Congress and the White House that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 banning discrimination against minorities and women.Following the implementation of these policies through a thickening maze of federal agencies and court decisions, the text reveals how the classic liberal agenda of non-discrimination evolved into the controversial program of affirmative action, surprisingly enough, under Richard Nixon.Based on extensive, groundbreaking research in the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon presidential archives and special collections of the Library of Congress, Civil Rights and the Presidency will be invaluable for courses in American history, political science, and black and women's studies. ... Read more

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It is now more than three decades since the historic Supreme Court decision on desegregation, Brown v. Board of Education. Thomas Sowell takes a tough, factual look at what has actually happened over these decades -- as distinguished from the hopes with which they began or the rhetoric with which they continue, Who has gained and who has lost? Which of the assumptions behind the civil rights revolution have stood the test of time and which have proven to be mistaken or even catastrophic to those who were supposed to be helped?

Customer Reviews (18)

Timeless
Never have I read something by Thomas Sowell that has left me disappointed.This book from 1984 is no different.

The author pounds the opposition with their greatest enemy, facts.It has great information in the debate on civil rights for black and women.

Ever wonder what is with the feminist talk about a pay gap between men and women?Read this book.

Wheel out the heavy artillery
When heavy artillery is needed in the fight against collectivist propaganda, then it's time to wheel out Thomas Sowell. Now in his late seventies, this distinguished economist and political philosopher has devoted much of his career to combating the myths of political correctness.

A prime example is his 1984 book, "Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality." In this monument to common sense, Sowell examines the disastrous turn in the American civil rights movement from equality of opportunity to equality of results.

Equality of opportunity is represented by the landmark 1954 lawsuit, Brown v. Board of Education, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down racial segregation in the public schools. The spirit of equal opportunity also was present in the formulation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Sowell brings several examples of Congressional sponsors of the bill (such as Hubert Humphrey) assuring their colleagues and the public that the legislation would not introduce quotas, preferences, or any other results-oriented mandate. The only target was to be intentional discrimination, and the burden of proof would be on the complainant.

It did not take long, however, before the Supreme Court began its crusade to re-introduce racial considerations into education and other spheres of American life. In the 1968 case of Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, the Court ruled that a Virginia school district was in violation of the Brown decision because its schools were still either predominantly white or predominantly black--even though families now had the choice of sending their children to any school they desired. In other words, racial barriers had been dismantled, and equal opportunity was in force.

But the results of the school district's new rules were not in keeping with the vision of Brown, said the Court. And thus the decision in Green paved the way for that great social catastrophe, the forced busing of children to achieve racial balance.

Three years later, in 1971, we witness the advent of quotas, as the Department of Labor issued "goals and timetables" to

"'increase materially the utilization of minorities and women'...Employers were required to confess to 'deficiencies in the utilization' of minorities and women whenever statistical parity could not be found in all job classifications, as a first step toward correcting this situation. The burden of proof--and remedy--was on the employer. 'Affirmative action' was now decisively transformed into a numerical concept, whether called 'goals' or 'quotas'."

This approach was soon rubber-stamped by the Supreme Court in the Weber case, in which the Civil Rights Act was stretched and distorted to allow affirmative action as we now know it.

All of this, asserts Sowell, was latent from the outset in the "civil rights vision of the world," which interprets statistical disparity as the work of discrimination and various "root causes." According to this view, the so-called under-representation of blacks (or women or Hispanics or the victim group du jour) in a given domain is ipso facto evidence of discrimination, regardless of the intent of the authority in question. If a department of physics at a major university does not have a single black faculty member, then racism is lurking somewhere, even if no qualified black person ever submitted a resume.

Sowell thoroughly deconstructs the madness behind this obsession with statistical disparity and its endless harvest of victim claims. Aggregate statistics on income prove nothing about underlying causes. An ethnic group can be poor in conditions of complete equality, or well-to-do in conditions of extreme adversity. The émigré Chinese communities are a classic case. Says Sowell:

"Throughout southeast Asia, for several centuries, the Chinese minority has been--and continues to be--the target of explicit, legalized discrimination in various occupations, in admission to institutions of higher learning, and suffers bans and restrictions on land ownership and places of residence...Yet in all these countries, the Chinese minority--about 5 percent of the population in southeast Asia--owns a majority of the nation's total investments in key industries...In Malaysia, where the anti-Chinese discrimination is written into the Constitution, is embodied in preferential quotas for Malays in government and private industry alike, and extends to admissions and scholarships at the universities, the average Chinese continues to earn twice the income of the average Malay."

Sowell also tackles the myth that women are underpaid and targets of discrimination in the workplace. When all the feminist hype is stripped away, we see that women are paid the same wages for the same work. True, women on average earn less then men, but this is due to (a) their greater tendency to work part-time; (b) interruptions in career due to the demands of motherhood; and (c) type of chosen profession.

If we compare apples to apples, that is, men who have never married to women who have never married,

"...an entirely different picture emerges. Women who remain single earn 91 percent of the income of men who remain single, in the age bracket from 25 to 64 years old. Nor can the other 9 percent automatically be attributed to employer discrimination, since women are typically not educated as often in such highly paid fields as mathematics, science, and engineering...This virtual parity in income between men who never marry and women who never marry is not a new phenomenon, attributable to affirmative action. In 1971, women who had remained unmarried into their thirties and who had worked since high school earned slightly higher incomes than men of the very same description. In the academic world, single women who received their Ph.D.'s in the 1930s had by the 1950s become full professors slightly more often than male Ph.D.'s as a whole."

A particularly biting testament against the travesty of affirmative action comes from Sowell's own personal experience. In the book's epilogue, he answers his critics. One of their many attacks is that Sowell (who is black) allegedly benefited in his own career from affirmative action. The fact that a scholar of Sowell's stature must rebut such a demeaning slander is a chilling reminder of the extent to which the apostles of the victim industry--from Supreme Court Justice William Brennan to Senator Barack Obama--have polluted American culture with their intellectual dross.

We can only sigh with Thomas Sowell as he writes:

"If there is an optimistic aspect of preferential doctrines, it is that they may eventually make so many Americans so sick of hearing of group labels and percentages that the idea of judging each individual on his or her own performance may become more attractive than ever."

Thomas Sowell, Exposer of False Dichotomies
If you will get one message from this book, it will be that there is no dichotomy between the innate inferiority of a group X and socially-institutionalized discrimination against group X to explain the statistical disparities between the achievements of members of X and individuals who are not included in X. If this dichotomy were true, then this would mean that the American public school system is blatantly biased in favor of students of Asian descent, as this minority group outperforms students of non-Asian descent to a statistically significant degree. However, the allegation of pro-Asian discrimination in this respect is ludicrous. Unfortunately, as Thomas Sowell so eloquently argues, the aforementioned false dichotomy forms the basis for much of the anti-discrimination legislation in existence today.

Thomas Sowell refutes many of the claims that are used to justify ongoing anti-discrimination laws. For example, the claim that statistical disparities in income and academic achievement imply that current society is still inherently (and possibly subconsciously) biased against blacks. However, Sowell argues that this cannot be true, as the fact that there are no statistically significant disparities between blacks from the West Indies and non-blacks serves as a counterexample.

Another claim refuted by Sowell is that institutionalized discrimination against a minority group prevents that minority group from obtaining a high standard of living. Although this claim might be true depending on the level of institutionalized discrimination, Sowell provides counterexamples to this as well, as the Han Chinese are heavily legally discriminated against in Malaysia and yet they disproportionately enjoy a higher standard of living in that region.

Sowell also challenges the claim that government programs that are designed to help a minority group, such as Affirmative Action, actually help that group. For example, instead, Sowell argues, by lowering admission standards for members of certain minority groups, universities merely ensure that these groups remain below their peers.

There are plenty more examples of the above nature in this book.

What explains these differences if not innate inferiority or institutionalized racism? Sowell argues that volitionally embraced cultural values explains these differences. Some cultures are almost entirely confined within a certain race. For example, redneck culture is considered entirely a white phenomenon.

Fortunately, since individuals have free will, if an individual wishes to be successful then they merely need to embrace values such as diligence, ambition and perseverance and eschew values that are antagonistic to such ends.

Stellar.
A piercing eye-opener. Sowell systematically illuminates and picks apart the cloud of unquestioned assumptions, faulty axioms, and bogus 'foregone conclusions' on which so much social policy dogma and more importantly, countless political careers, hangs.

I seem to need to know "why" . . . again.
In the days following 9/11, after the initial shock and anger, I found myself spending hours on the internet trying to figure out who Al Qaeda were and what would motivate such a hideous attack on innocent Americans. Why?!

What does this have to do with Thomas Sowell and Civil Rights?Well, although I am neither a Democrat nor a liberal, politically speaking, my opinion of Senator Obama was that maybe he was a candidate who deserved consideration over the alternatives of Clinton or McCain.But then came the revelation that Senator Obama was a 20-year congregant and an apparent friend and admirer of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.And once again, I found myself surprised and completely baffled, asking myself "why"-- why would Sen. Obama, apparently in the main stream of current American politics (or any reasonable American of any race) find the hate-filled racial rhetoric of Rev. Wright a source of inspiration, spiritual, social or otherwise?

One of Thomas Sowell's more recent columns on the topic of race led me to the purchase his book.Written more than 20 years ago, Sowell's insights into the Civil Rights movement of the 60's, and its mutation from the ideal of "equal opportunity" to the social and racial politics of the present seem to resonate.After reading "Civil Rights", I believe Thomas Sowell clearly knows and also forcefully and logically explains, better than any other authority I have found, the "why" of our current social and racial politics.

Read and draw your on conclusions.I believe it will be well worth the time, irrespective of one's race and politics. ... Read more

Product Description

Situated on the banks of the Ohio River, Louisville, Kentucky, represents a cultural and geographical intersection of North and South. Throughout its history, Louisville has simultaneously displayed northern and southern characteristics in its race relations. In their struggles against racial injustice in the mid-twentieth century, activists in Louisville crossed racial, economic, and political dividing lines to form a wide array of alliances not seen in other cities of its size. In Civil Rights in the Gateway to the South: Louisville, Kentucky, 1945--1980, noted historian Tracy E. K'Meyer provides the first comprehensive look at the distinctive elements of Louisville's civil rights movement. K'Meyer frames her groundbreaking analysis by defining a border as a space where historical patterns and social concerns overlap. From this vantage point, she argues that broad coalitions of Louisvillians waged long-term, interconnected battles during the city's civil rights movement. K'Meyer shows that Louisville's border city dynamics influenced both its racial tensions and its citizens' approaches to change. Unlike African Americans in southern cities, Louisville's black citizens did not face entrenched restrictions against voting and other forms of civic engagement. Louisville schools were integrated relatively peacefully in 1956, long before their counterparts in the Deep South. However, the city bore the marks of Jim Crow segregation in public accommodations until the 1960s. Louisville joined other southern cities that were feeling the heat of racial tensions, primarily during open housing and busing conflicts (more commonly seen in the North) in the late 1960s and 1970s. In response to Louisville's unique blend of racial problems, activists employed northern models of voter mobilization and lobbying, as well as methods of civil disobedience usually seen in the South. They crossed traditional barriers between the movements for racial and economic justice to unite in common action. Borrowing tactics from their neighbors to the north and south, Louisville citizens merged their concerns and consolidated their efforts to increase justice and fairness in their border city. By examining this unique convergence of activist methods, Civil Rights in the Gateway to the South provides a better understanding of the circumstances that unified the movement across regional boundaries.

Product Description
Social movements have wrought dramatic changes upon American society. This observation necessarily raises the question: Why do some movements succeed in their endeavors while others fail? This book answers this question by introducing an analytical framework that begins with a shift in emphasis away from the characteristics of movements toward the targets of protests and affected bystanders, their interests, and why they respond as they do. Such a shift brings into focus how targets and other interests assess both their exposure to movement disruptions as well as the costs of conceding to movement demands. From this vantage point, diverse outcomes stem not only from a movement's capabilities for protest but also from differences among targets and others in their vulnerability to disruption and the substance of movement goals. Applied to the civil rights movement, this approach recasts conventional accounts of the movement's outcome in local struggles and national politics, and also clarifies the broader logic of social change. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Very well written highly readable and informative
This book is essential reading for anyone interested in politics and civil rights generally. For those with a specific interest in the Northern Ireland or American civil rights movements of the 60s, this is one of the best books written on this subject.

A very unique book that credibly draws parallels between the concurrent campaigns.

Highly recommended.

making a record of remembered bridges
While most educators and textbooks in the US would have us believe the polarization of oppression and race along lines of skin pigmentation is the natural, inherent, and historical condition of ethnic interaction, Dooley's book suggests otherwhise._Black and Green_ looks at the common link forged by oppression and the struggle for liberation between white Irish and black Americans since the 1800s.

Dooley examines the political, social, and ideological connections between the civil rights struggle in Ireland and America.His analysis results in a picture of reciprocal interchange with both sides influencing, shaping, and supporting the other.The end result is that this "other" demarcated through pigmentation was hardly an "other" during the historical moment.Angela Davis and Bernadette McAliskey support each other while in prison. When McAliskey later receives the keys to the city of New York for her work in Ireland, she gives them to the Black Panther Party.Frederick Douglas and O'Connell heavily influence each other's political thought and speak out in support of each other's cause.Marcus Garvey claims the color scheme of his movement reflects the struggle of various liberation moments of different races all over the world, including the Irish (Red for the reds of the world, green for the Irish struggle, and black for the African American, or, as he puts it at the time, the "Negro struggle." )

Dooley's writing is lucid, engaging, and often narrative.As his innovative and perhaps contentious claims demand, Dooley's research is heavily documumented, often cites primary sources, and features hundreds of foot notes at the book's end.Educators and researchers may use this book with the confidence that they can ascertain with some degree of certainty the primary sources from which Dooley's arguments arise.Further, Dooley's writing is eminently accessible and multi-layered.I have used sections of chapters in my middle school classroom in the Bronx and cited Dooley extensively in papers for graduate school._Black and Green_ is an invaluable resource for race studies, American or Irish history, and civil rights seminars.

An American Perspective on the Irish Struggle
The key to understanding who the oppressed are and who the oppressors are is determined by looking at who the domestic workers are and for whom they work.Who is it that picks up after whom? Bernadette Devlin McAlisky'skeen political sense with activists in the civil rights struggle andaffluent Irish-Americans is very revealing.Catholic women pick up afterProtestant families in Ireland.African-American women pick up afteraffluent Irish-American families in America.She felt more at home withmembers of The Black Panther Party than with these affluent IrishAmericans. The support of the abolition struggle by Irish republicans suchas Daniel O'Connell is of historic import.The support the Irish struggleby fighters such as Frederick Douglas and Marcus Garvey is also of historicinterest.However, the interchange of tactics by both struggles is mostrevealing.The historic Belfast-Derry March in January 1969 was modeledafter the Selma-Montgomery protest four earlier.The Montgomery busboycott got its name from Captain Boycott an avaricious Irish landlord. Michael Farrell set up the Young Socialist Alliance in Ireland modeledafter the Young Socialists Alliance in the United States. Black and Greenhas much more of interest for American understanding of the Irish struggleand is must reading for fighters struggling against oppression and bigotry. ... Read more

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"Bumiller is among several scholars who have questioned the excessive reliance on law, especially constitutional law and the Supreme Court, as a means of solving social problems in the United States. The book will generate much discussion among those scholars interested in critical legal studies, sociology of law, race and gender relations, the social psychology of victimization, and social stratification." -- Darnell F. Hawkins, Contemporary Sociology.

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Providing a well-rounded presentation of the constitution and evolution of civil rights in the United States, this book will be useful for students and academics with an interest in civil rights, race and the law.

Abraham L Davis and Barbara Luck Graham's purpose is: to give an overview of the Supreme Court and its rulings with regard to issues of equality and civil rights; to bring law, political science and history into the discussion of civil rights and the Supreme Court; to incorporate the politically disadvantaged and the human component into the discussion; to stimulate discussion among students; and to provide a text that cultivates competence in reading actual Supreme Court cases.

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After 23 months of research and writing, Where Rebels Roost features --A Nine-page Selected Bibliography/Citations: 73 Books; 3 Dissertations; 47 Articles; 32 Collections, Interviews, Oral Histories --Twenty-pages/Lists of Dead/References 900+ names and information of African Americans lynched and murdered in Mississippi from 1870 to 1970 (references Southern Law & Poverty Center, NAACP, Tuskegee Institute, individual family and friends, personal research) --Sixteen-page/160+ Names of Emmett Till Principles/Names and biographies of people close to this case, from lawyers, witnesses, judges and jurors to police, politicians, friends and families. Also, civil war stories of black heroism (spies and soldiers for the North)--And over one hundred specific Sovereignty Commission Documents, cited with references given (plus over 1,000 footnotes!), But more important are the stories of some very unique, persevering and brave people -- all stories that deserve to be told. ... Read more

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Klopfer Gives Facts No One Has Found Before
Susan Klopfer has conducted in-depth personal research for her civil rights writings. She has walked the land where these atrocities occurred and still occur. Susan has experienced the pain and secrecy felt in these stories as she conducted first hand interviews with relatives of victims. All well worth reading, Susan Klopfer tells it like it is, and like it was.
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The African American struggle for freedom and equality is one of the truly heroic elements of American history. Yet even today, African Americans as a whole still do not fully share in the American dream. This encyclopedia explores the struggle's successes and setbacks, from emancipation to the beginning of the 21st century. ... Read more

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This collection of nine essays analyzes the people, theprotests, and the incidents of the civil rights movement through thelens of gender. More than just a study of women, the book examines theways in which assigned sexual roles and values shaped the strategy,tactics, and ideology of the movement. The essays deal with topicsranging from the Montgomery bus boycott and Rhythm and Blues togangsta rap and contemporary fiction, from the 1950s to the1990s. Referring to groups such as the National Council of AfricanAmerican Men and events such as the Million Man March, the authorsaddress male gender identity as much as female, arguing thatslave/master relations from before the Civil War continued to affectBlack masculinity in the postwar battle for civil rights. Whereasfeminism traditionally deals with issues of patriarchy and prescribedgender roles, this volume shows how race relations continue tocomplicate sex-based definitions within the civil rights movement ... Read more

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Examines the significant role played by the U.S. SupremeCourt in shaping race relations and affecting civil rights in theperiod between the end of the Civil War and the 1954 Brown decision. ... Read more

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Using interviews with leaders and participants, as well as historical archives, the author documents three interracial sites where white Americans put themselves into unprecedented relationships with African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Asian Americans.In teen summer camps in the New York City and Los Angeles areas, students from largely segregated schools worked and played together; in Washington, DC, families fought blockbusting and white flight to build an integrated neighborhood; and in San Antonio, white community activists joined in coalition with Mexican American groups to advocate for power in a city government monopolized by Anglos.Women often took the lead in organizations that were upsetting patterns of men's protective authority at the same time as white people's racial dominance. ... Read more

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Paperback ... Read more

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The most important law
The Whalen's account of the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is riveting, focusing on elements of the story that are sometimes ignored -- especially the importance of House Republicans to enacting the most significant law Congress passed in the Twentieth Century. ... Read more

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For undergraduate courses in Constitutional Law, Civil Rights & Liberties, Introduction to American Government,Introduction to Law and Legal Process, and Judicial Process & Politics. Examining contemporary and perennial constitutional issues in civil liberties and rights, this text engages students in an exploration of how and why U.S. Supreme Court Justices have interpreted the provisions of the U.S. Constitution relating to freedom of expression and religion, and equal protection and privacy. ... Read more

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Excellent Book!!
This book is beautifully written. It covers almost all civil rights topics in simplistic language.I am actually taking Sullivan's civil rights seminar class so I've gotten an even deeper insight into the text. I recommend it for any civil rights classes. ... Read more

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This book offers a comprehensive examination of Hubert Humphrey's civil rights rhetoric. The editor showcases Humphrey's civil rights speeches from 1948 to 1964, most of which have never been published. Because it was common for Humphrey to use speeches containing similar strains of thought in a given month or year, the speeches in this text will provide a sound representation of all of Huphrey's speeches during this period. The study begins with Humphrey's first national plea to the 1948 Democratic National Convention. Next, readers are taken through Humphrey's entrance into the U.S. Senate, and his asking for national morality and national action. Humphrey's remarks exemplify his development of national arguments in support of the 1964 Civil Rights Amendment and his ideas for the direction of this movement. Comments by Humphrey and others are included in order to provide additional framework for the study of his rhetoric. This thoroughly edited and carefully selected set of essays will enlighten readers to one of the greatest accomplishments of Humphrey's public life--his contribution to civil rights. This book will appeal to students and scholars of rhetoric, speech communication, political science and history. ... Read more

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Necessary text to study prejudice, discrimination and other
This text opens the eyes of the reader to the savagery and despicable cruelty of the lopsided South in the 1950's. How a world can be so tainted that it would demonize the human race with such an act.Killing of a child for this so-called crime denies the existence of the world God created where human beings are meant to co-exist regardless of color.Prejudice is learned; it cannot be natural. How can it be ?

shocking but necessary
I read this book as part of Dr. Robert Weem's Black History class at the University of Missouri and I was absolutely stunned.Being one of a very few white girls growing up on the border of Mexico, I thought I had experienced racism and prejudice, boy did I have a lot to learn. I was first shocked andthen just out right embarrassed that anyone, but especially someone I share any similar characteristic with (white skin in this case) could so horribly murder a child."OH MY GOD"I repeated to myself over and over again."OH MY GOD."-the picture of that mutilated child will surely sicken the heart of anyone, especially a parent.

I think anyone who has been disillusioned to believe that the old south (or the new south for that matter) was made up of free, happy black folks who were at last welcomed to white society at the abolition of slavery (or even in 1964 for what it is worth) needs to read this book and see the world without the rose colored glasses.

A little hard to follow, this book doesn't flow like a John Grisham novel, but if you can get through the tedious facts (I know, I am part of that now-now generation) you will find a heart wrenching and mortifying story that will change the way you see white America and the poor hand it has dealt so many black people.Also very interesting...the dissention between Till's mother, uncle and the NAACP.I completely recommend this book to anyone interested in history, knowledge, and the truth. ... Read more