Review by Choice Review
Historians have given considerable attention to the Civil Rights Movement, mostly to the upper South between 1940 and the 1970s. The essays in this collection attempt to correct what the editor deems an oversight by underscoring the 19th-century origins of civil rights activities, and by concentrating attention on the Gulf South. The essays include pieces on the 1866 New Orleans riots, the protests surrounding the Plessy decision, the dilemmas that race caused for labor organizers in Texas, the Tallahassee bus boycott, and the integration of the Louisiana state police. Each of the essays contributes to the larger theme and reminds us that civil rights efforts were more widespread than the activities centered on Montgomery, Martin Luther King Jr., the Supreme Court, and urban riots. The essays are uneven in quality. Some are local studies from which one can extrapolate national themes; others do not go beyond chronicling long-neglected events. Extensive notes accompany each essay. The introduction attempts to put the essays in perspective, but there is no overriding bibliography or bibliographic essay, which might have put the essays in a larger context. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Graduate students and faculty. T. F. Armstrong Tennessee Wesleyan College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
