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Historians and the Civil Rights Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Adam Fairclough
Adam Fairclough
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer in History, St. David's University College, University of Wales, Lampeter, Dyfed, SA48 7ED.
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Type
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Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , December 1990 , pp. 387 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

References

1 Sitkoff, Harvard, A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 335Google Scholar; Norrell, Robert J., Reaping the Whirlwind: The Civil Rights Movement in Tuskegee (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), xGoogle Scholar; Korstad, Robert and Lichtenstein, Nelson, “Opportunities Lost and Found: Labor, Radicals, and the Early Civil Rights Movement,” Journal of American History, 75 (12 1988), 786–811CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hine, Darlene Clark, Black Victory: The Rise and Fall of the White Primary in Texas (Millwood, NY: K.T.O. Press, 1979).Google Scholar

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3 McNeil, Genna Rae, Groundwork: Charles Hamilton Houston and the Struggle for Civil Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kluger, Richard, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tushnet, Mark V., The NAACP's Legal Strategy Against Segregated Education, 1925–1950 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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5 Berman, William C., The Politics of Civil Rights in the Truman Administration (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; McCoy, Donald R. and Ruetten, Richard T., Quest and Response: Minority Rights and the Truman Administration (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1973).Google Scholar

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8 Marable, Manning, Race, Reform and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction in America, 1945–1982 (London: Macmillan, 1984), 17–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Murray, Hugh T. Jr., Civil Rights History-Writing and Anti-Communism: A Critique (New York: American Institute for Marxist Studies, 1975)Google Scholar; Home, Gerald, Communist front? The Civil Rights Congress, 1946–1956 (Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1988).Google Scholar

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10 McAdam, Doug, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Morris, Aldon D., The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organising for Change (New York: Free Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Meier, August and Rudwick, Elliott, “The Origins of Nonviolent Direct Action in Afro-American Protest: A Note on Historical Discontinuities,” in Along the Color Line: Explorations in the Black Experience (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976), 307–404.Google Scholar

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12 Meier, August and Rudwick, Elliott, CORE: A Study in the Civil Rights Movement, 1942–1968 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; Carson, Clayborne, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; Fairclough, Adam, To Redeem the Soul of America: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987).Google Scholar

13 Garrow, David J., Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (New York: William Morrow, 1986)Google Scholar; Branch, Taylor, Parting the Waters: America In the King Years, 1954–1963 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988)Google Scholar; Downing, Frederick L., To See the Promised Land: The Faith Pilgrimage of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Ansbro, John, Martin Luther King, Jr.: The Making of a Mind (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1982)Google Scholar; Smith, Kenneth L. and Zepp, Ira G., Search for the Beloved Community: The Thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1974)Google Scholar. See also Oates, Stephen B., Let The Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (London: Search Press, 1982)Google Scholar; and Fairclough, Adam, Martin Luther Luther King, Jr. (London: Sphere, forthcoming).Google Scholar

14 Colburn, David R., Racial Change and Community Crisis: St. Augustine, Florida, 1877–1980 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985)Google Scholar, which, despite its title, focuses on the years 1963–64; Garrow, David J., Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978)Google Scholar; Anderson, Alan B. and Pickering, George W., Confronting the Color Line: The Broken Promise of the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Beifuss, Joan T., At the River I Stand: Memphis, the 1968 Strike, and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Memphis, B & W Books, 1985)Google Scholar; Thornton, J. Mills, “Challenge and Response in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955–1956,” Alabama Review, 33 (07 1980), 163–235Google Scholar; Fager, Charles E., Selma 1965: The March that Changed a Nation (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1974)Google Scholar; Longnecker, Stephen E., Selma's Peacemaker: Ralph Smeltzer and Civil Rights Mediation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Salter, John R., Jackson, Mississippi: An American Chronicle of Struggle and Schism (Hicksville, NY: Exposition Press, 1979).Google Scholar

15 Chafe, William H., Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Norell, op. cit.; Corley, Robert G., “The Quest for Racial Harmony: Race Relations in Birmingham, Alabama, 1947–1963,” Ph.D., University of Virginia, 1979Google Scholar; Rogers, Kim Lacy, “Humanity and Desire: Civil Rights Leaders and the Desegregation of New Orleans, 1954–1966,” Ph.D., University of Minnesota, 1982Google Scholar; Gaillard, Frye, The Dream Long Deferred (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Pride, Richard A. and Woodward, J. David, The Burden of Busing: The Politics of Desegregation in Nashville, Tennessee (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985).Google Scholar

16 The best studies of Massive Resistance are Bartley, Numan V., The Rise of Massive Resistance: Race and Politics in the South During the 1950s (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1969)Google Scholar; McMillen, Neil R., The Citizen's Council: Organised Resistance to the Second Reconstruction (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971)Google Scholar; and Ely, James W., The Crisis of Conservative Virginia: The Byrd Organisation and the Politics of Massive Resistance (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976)Google Scholar. Two works that do attempt to incorporate the black perspective are Jeansonne, Glen, Leander Perez: Boss of the Delta (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; and Wagy, Tom R., LeRoy Collins of Florida: Spokesman of the New South (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1985).Google Scholar

17 Rogers, Kim Lacy, “Oral History and the History of the Civil Rights Movement,” Journal of American History, 75 (09 1988), 567–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Raines, , My Soul is Rested: Movement Days in the Deep South Remembered (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1977)Google Scholar consists almost entirely of interview extracts. David J. Garrow's Bearing The Cross is perhaps the work that most successfully integrates extensive interviewing with mastery of the written sources. Lipsitz, George, A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988)Google Scholar is an interesting attempt to use both oral history and documents to analyze the civil rights movement from the viewpoint of an obscure activist.

18 Dittmer, has anticipated some of his findings in “The Politics of the Mississippi Movement,” in Eagles, 65–93.Google Scholar

19 Lawson, Steven F., “Commentary,” in Eagles, 34–35.Google Scholar

20 Lubell, Samuel, The Future of American Politics (New York: Harper and Row, 1951), 118–20Google Scholar; Greenberg, Stanley B., Race and State in Capitalist Development: South Africa in Comparative Perspective (Johannesburg: Rowan Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Cell, John W., The Highest Stage of White Supremacy: The Origins of Segregation in South Africa and the American South (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jacoway, Elizabeth and Colburn, David R. (eds.), Southern Businessmen and Desegregation (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1882)Google Scholar; Cobb, James C., The Selling of the South: The Southern Crusade for Industrial Development, 1936–1980 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Gelber, Steven M., Black Men and Businessmen: The Growing Awareness of a Social Responsibility (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1974)Google Scholar; Badger, Tony, “Segregation and the Southern Business Elite,” journal of American Studies, 18 (1984), 105–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Bass, Jack, Unlikely Heroes (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981)Google Scholar; McGough, Lucy S. and Read, Frank T., Let Them Be Judged: The Judicial Integration of the Deep South (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1978)Google Scholar; Wilkinson, J. Harvie III, From Brown to Bakke: The Supreme Court and School Integration, 1954–1978 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Charles V. Hamilton, “Federal Law and the Courts in the Civil Rights Movement,” and Tushnet, Mark V., “Commentary,” in Eagles, 97–125.Google Scholar

22 Generally critical: Burk, Robert F., The Eisenhower Administration and Black Civil Rights (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Navasky, Victor S., Kennedy Justice (New York: Atheneum, 1971)Google Scholar; Herbers, John, The Lost Priority: What Happened to the Civil Rights Movement in America? (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1970) (Johnson)Google Scholar; generally sympathetic: Duram, James C., A Moderate Among Extremists: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the School Desegregation Crisis (Chicago: 1981)Google Scholar; Mayer, Michael S., “With Much Deliberation and Some Speed: Eisenhower and the Brown Decision,” Journal of Southern History, 52 (02 1986), 43–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brauer, Carl M., John F. Kennedy and the Second Reconstruction (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977)Google Scholar. For Congress see Garrow, , Protest at SelmaGoogle Scholar; Charles, and Whalen, Barbara, The Longest Debate: A Legislative History of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Cabin John, MD: Seven Locks Press, 1985).Google Scholar

23 Lawson, Steven F., Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944–1969 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976)Google Scholar, and In Pursuit of Power: Southern Blacks and Electoral Politics, 1965–1982 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Barnes, Catherine A., Journey from Jim Crow: The Desegregation of Southern Transit (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Belknap, Michal R., Federal Law and Southern Order: Racial Violence and Constitutional Conflict in the Post-Brown South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1987).Google Scholar

24 Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, Revolt Against Chivalry: Jesse Daniel Ames and the Women's Campaign Against Lynching (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Zangrando, , The NAACP Crusade Against LynchingGoogle Scholar; McGovern, James R., Anatomy of a Lynching: The Killing of Claude Neal (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Smead, Howard, Blood Justice: The Lynching of Mack Charles Parker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Whitfield, Stephen J., A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (New York: Free Press, 1988)Google Scholar. See also Shapiro, Herbert, White Violence and Black Response: From Reconstruction to Montgomery (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1988). Shapiro has promised another volume covering the 1960s.Google Scholar

25 Ely, James W., “Demonstrations and the Law: Danville as a Test Case,” Vanderbilt Law Review, 27 (10 1974), 927–68Google Scholar; Barkan, Steven E., Protesters on Trial: Criminal Justice in the Southern Civil Rights and Vietnam Antiwar Movements (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1985).Google Scholar

26 In addition to the works cited above, see Wolters, Raymond, The Burden of Brown: Thirty Years of School Desegregation (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Bartley, Numan V. and Graham, Hugh D., Southern Politics and the Second Reconstruction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975)Google Scholar; Lamis, Alexander P., The Two-Party South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Wade, Wyn Craig. The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987)Google Scholar. For more optimistic (and journalistic) assessments, see Gaillard, , The Dream Long DeferredGoogle Scholar; Bass, Jack and DeVries, Walter, The Transformation of Southern Politics (New York: Basic Books, 1976)Google Scholar; Edds, Margaret, Free at Last (New York: Adler and Adler, 1987).Google Scholar

27 Rehin, George, “Of Marshalls, Myrdals and Kings: Some Recent Books about the Second Reconstruction,” Journal of American Studies, 22 (04 1988), 87–103Google Scholar; Richard H. King, “Citizenship and Self-Respect: The Experience of Politics in the Civil Rights Movement,” ibid., 7–24; McAdam, Doug, Freedom Summer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; Garrow, David J. (ed.), The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Brown, Cynthia S. (ed.), Ready From Within: Septima Clark and the Civil Rights Movement (Navarro, CA: Wild Trees Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Guy, and Carawan, Candie, “‘Freedom in the Air’: An Overview of the Songs of the Civil Rights Movement”Google Scholar; Reagon, Bernice Johnson, “The Lined Hymn as a Song of Freedom,” both in Black Music Research Bulletin, 12 (Spring 1990), 1–8.Google Scholar

28 Garrow, David J., The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From “Solo” to Memphis (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981)Google Scholar; O'Reilly, Kenneth, “Racial Matters”: The FBI's Secret File on Black America, 1960–1972 (New York: Free Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Sitkoff, Harvard, The Struggle for Black Equality, 1954–1980 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1981)Google Scholar; Marable, , Race, Reform and RebellionGoogle Scholar; Bloom, Jack M., Race, Class, and the Civil Rights Movement (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Weisbrot, Robert, Freedom Bound: A History of America's Civil Rights Movement (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990)Google Scholar; Eagles, , The Civil Rights Movement in America.Google Scholar