The Civil Rights Movement

(Hardback)

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Description

Mark Newman outlines the range of white responses to the Civil Rights Movement and analyses both northern and southern opinion. He examines the role of the federal government, the church and organized labor, as well as the impact of the Cold War. The book discusses local, regional, and national civil rights campaigns; the utility of nonviolent direct action; and the resurgence of Black Nationalism. And it explains the development, achievements and disintegration of the national civil rights coalition, the role of Martin Luther King Jr. and the contribution of many otherwise ordinary men and women to the movement. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People receives particular attention, with contrasts drawn between the national office and state conferences and local branches. In detailing and assessing the African-American struggle between the 1930s and 1980s, Newman widens the movement's traditional chronology, offering readers a broad-ranging history.

Reviews

This publication of the British Association for American Studies is a concise introduction to the struggle for equal rights. Synthesizing recent scholarship, Newman avoids the celebrity profile approach to the movement's history and instead focuses on the importance of actions undertaken by local communities and the overlooked work performed by women activists. In addition, he recalls the prestige of the NAACP as a leading organization in the cause for civil rights. Especially important is Newman's profile of the work local NAACP chapters conducted in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas....The book includes a bibliographic essay that introduces readers to important sources for understanding the Civil Rights Movement. Recommended. All academic levels/collections.-Choice
"This publication of the British Association for American Studies is a concise introduction to the struggle for equal rights. Synthesizing recent scholarship, Newman avoids the celebrity profile approach to the movement's history and instead focuses on the importance of actions undertaken by local communities and the overlooked work performed by women activists. In addition, he recalls the prestige of the NAACP as a leading organization in the cause for civil rights. Especially important is Newman's profile of the work local NAACP chapters conducted in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas....The book includes a bibliographic essay that introduces readers to important sources for understanding the Civil Rights Movement. Recommended. All academic levels/collections."-Choice

Author Bio

MARK NEWMAN is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Derby and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is the author of the award-winning Getting Right with God: Southern Baptists and Desegregation, 1945-1995 (University of Alabama Press, 2001) and Divine Agitators: The Delta Ministry and Civil Rights in Mississippi (University of Georgia Press, 2004).