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Civil Rights SUNDAY, APRIL ~4· ~005 5 EXPERT'S PICKS: CIVIL RIGHTS We asked Clayborne Carson, director of the King Papers Project and author of the civil Chana Kai Lee (Univ. of Illinois) The origins of the modem women's liberation movement can rights history "In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s," to pick a be traced to the indelible experiences of articulate female civil rights activists. Their stories have been told well in several an­ shelf full of essential books on the modern African American battle for full citizenship. thologies, the best of which include the collection assembled by Collier-Thomas and Franklin as well as Curry's project, which features her reminiscences along with those of eight of her fel­ low activists. Fleming's biography of SNCC worker Robinson ome of the most fascinating books on modem African and Lee's study of Hamer, a stalwart leader of the Mississippi American history have recast the civil rights movement as freedom struggle, also shed illuminating and necessary light. San expansive freedom struggle with visionary goals that reached beyond domestic legal battles and attained global sig· FREEDOM'S SWORD: The NAACP and the Struggle nificance. During the past quarter-century, these writings have · Against Racism in America, 1909-1969, by Gilbert Jo­ shown that black political militancy sought not just civil rights nas (Routledge) legislation but also broader political and economic gains. Rath­ THURGOOD MARSHALL: American Revolutionary, by er than assuming that this militancy was carefully orchestrated Juan Williams (Three Rivers) by Martin Luther King Jr., contemporary historians have in­ FROM JIM CROW TO CIVIL RIGHTS: The Supreme Court creasingly directed their attention to the grassroots leaders and the Struggle for Racial Equality, by Michael J. Klar· who spearheaded local struggles for black advancement. They man (Oxford Univ.) insist that leaders·of national civil rights groups exerted little Despite all the attention now being paid to the foot soldiers of control over the sustained protest campaigns that took place af. the black struggle, it would be wrong to suppose that the gener­ ter World War II. Even King struggled to keep pace with the tu­ als have been ignored. During the past two decades, many re­ multuous protests that occurred in Southern communities dur­ March to Washington, Lincoln Memorial (1963) vealing studies of major civil rights leaders have appeared. Jo­ iitg the 1960s. nas renders a sympathetic treatment of the NAACP, while This trend toward bottom-up studies reflects the experiences LOST PROPHET: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin, by Williams creates a riveting portrait of the NAACP leader most of historians such as myself who participated in the mass activ­ John D'Emilio (Free Press) responsible for the landmark Brown decision, yet whose nation­ ism of the 1950s and _' 60s. At the 1963 March on Washington, I A FIRE YOU CAN'T PUT OUT: The Civil Rights Life of Bir­ al prominence declined with the ri5e of mass militancy. Klar­ admired King's "I Have a Dream" speech but was also moved by mingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, by Andrew man's ambitious effort provides ample evidence that national le­ the controversial remarks of John Lewis, then chair of the Stu­ M. Manis (Univ. of Alabama) gal norms did little to stem the most egregious types of racial dent Nonviolent Coordinat4Jg Committee (SNCC). Lewis A common criticism of social histories is that they obscure oppression. brashly linked our cause to anticolonial movements in Africa the role of exceptional individuals, but the best of such projects and called for a "great social revolution" that would reach "ev­ highlight the roles of those activists without conventional cre­ BEARING THE CROSS: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the ery city, every village, and every hamlet of this nation." dentials or resources who made extraordinary contnbutions to Southern Christian Leadership Conference, by David J. By 1985, when Coretta Scott King asked me to edit her late the modem African American freedom struggle. These titles Garrow (Perennial) husband's papers, the best studies of the modem African Amer­ are among the most vivid movement biographies of recent PARTING THE WATERS and PILLAR OF FIRE, by Taylor ican freedom struggle had abandoned simplistic depictions of years. Baker and SCLC's Rustin were experienced organizers Branch (Simon &'Schuster) "King and his followers." While not ignoring King's uniquely vi­ - an assertive proto-feminist and an unremorseful homosexual There is no paucity of studies regarding King, the one nation- sionary leadership, the most insightful studies of the past two working within organizations that did not welcome either type. ·al civil rights leader whose influence extended from the confer­ decades have illuminated the complex relationship between They conveyed to often skeptical younger activists the lessons ence rooms of the Washington power brokers to the mass meet­ him - as well as national civil rights leaders - and the grass­ they had learned during the 1930s and 1940s. Manis's biogra­ ings of powerless Mississippi cotton pickers. During the roots organizers who .pushed the black struggle in unexpected phy is an engaging portrait cif Binningham's most significant mid-1980s, as my colleagues and I began preparing a definitive new directions. protest leader. · · edition of The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., two major studies of King were beginning to incorporate elements of LOCAL PEOPLE: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mis­ THE MAKING OF BLACK REVOLUTIONARIES, by James SNCC's bottom-up perspective. Thus, Garrow's meticulously sissippi, by John Dittmer (Univ. of Illinois) Forman (Univ. of Washington) researched, Pulitzer Prize-winning book concludes with Ella l'VE GOT THE LIGHT OF FREEDOM: The Organizing Tra· RIVER OF NO RETURN: The Autobiography of a Black Baker's corrective judgment: 'The movement made Martin dition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle, Militant and the Life and Death of SNCC, by Cleveland rather than Martin making the movement." Branch incorpo­ by Charles M. Payne (Univ. of California) Sellers with Robert Terrell (Univ. Press of Mississippi) . rates Baker's sentiment into the first two volumes of his proj­ These·books are among the most notable titles that .have fo­ WALKING WITH THE WIND: A Memoir of the Movement, ected trilogy on"Am erica in the King Years." His sprawling nar­ cused on SNCCs grassroots organizing efforts. They document by John Lewis with Michael D'Orso (Harvest) rative, also a Pulitzer Prize winner, shows how national political the evolution of political strategies devised by courageous orga­ READY FOR REVOLUTION: The Life and Struggle of leaders deftly channeled southern mass insurgency ip.to a suc­ nizers and indigenous leaders as they battled the brutal forces of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), by Stokely Car­ cessful campaign for historic civil rights legislation. white supremacy. michael with Michael Thelwell (Scribner) SNCC's internal debates presaged conflictS that divided Afri. EYES OFF THE PRIZE: The United Nations and the Afri­ CIVILITIES AND CIVIL RIGHTS: Greensboro, North Caro­ can Americans as well as Americans of all races. Two books that can-American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-19SS, lina, and the Black Struggle for Freedom, by William originally appeared in the early 1970s-soon after those heat­ by Carol Anderson (Cambridge Univ.) Chafe (Oxford Univ.) . ed disputes - are still available. Forman, a former executive RACE WOMAN: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois, by REAPING THE WHIRLWIND: The Civil Rights Movement secretary of SNCC who died in January, offered a yeasty blend Gerald Horne (New York Univ.) in Tuskegee, by Robert J. Norrell (Univ. of North Carolina) of social history and ideological combat in his book. Sellers, a TOWARD THE BELOVED COMMUNITY: Martin Luther RACE &·DEMOCRACY: The Civil Rights Struggle in Loui· former student activist and now a professor at the University of i<ing, Jr., and South Africa, by Lewis V. Baldwin (Pilgrim) siana, 191S-1972, by Adam Fairclough (Univ. of Georgia) South Carolina, presents a similarly representative take on the TH.E COLD WAR AND THE COLOR LINE: American Race BUT 'FOR BIRMINGHAM: The Local and National Move­ group's tumultuous history. More recent accounts by SNCC Relations in the Global Arena, by Thomas Borstelmann ments in the Civil Rights Struggle, by Glenn T. Eskew leaders Lewis and Carmichael also replay the internal argu­ (Harvard Univ.) (Univ. of North Carolina) ments over the meaning and direction of black power. The growing body of writings on King reveals his unique abil­ CARRY ME HOME: Birmingham, Alabama, The Climatic ity to express the visionary long-term goals of the mass move­ Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution, by Diane McWhor· SISTERS IN THE STRUGGLE: African-American Women ment from which he emerged. He consistently reminded us that ter(Simon & Schuster). Pulitzer Prize winner in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, edited the African American struggle was part of a global battle for The ever-expanding literature on local movements reveals by Bettye Collier-Thomas and V.P. Franklin (New York Univ.) freedom. Anderson, Home and Borstehnann's books are among that eaclJ. community confronted the dilemmas of race relations DEEP IN OUR HEARTS: Nine White Women in the Free­ those published during the past decade that follow up on this in­ in distinctive ways. These case studies extend to the roots of the dom Movement, by Constance Curry et al. sight by reminding readers of the international dimension of Af. modem black freedom struggle in the Depression era and even (Univ. of Georgia) rican American political militancy. We can expect, therefore, before. SOON WE WILL NOT CRY: The Liberation of Ruby Doris that some historians will continue to look closely at African Robinson, by Cynthia Griggs Fleming American grassroots activism, even as others persuasively link ELLA BAKER AND THE BLACK FREEDOM MOVEMENT, by (Rowman and Littlefield) FOR FREEDOM'S SAKE: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer, by that activism to a global freedom struggle that changed the lives Barbara Ransby (Univ.
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