Redefining the Color Line: Black Activism in Little Rock, Arkansas 1940-1970 (New Perspectives on the History of the South) - Hardcover

John A. Kirk

3.88

8 ratings by Goodreads

9780813024967: Redefining the Color Line: Black Activism in Little Rock, Arkansas 1940-1970 (New Perspectives on the History of the South)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 081302496X ISBN 13: 9780813024967

Publisher: University Press of Florida, 2002

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

This work looks at one of the most significant events in the struggle for black civil rights in America. In 1957 the Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas began integration. Resistance forced President Eisenhower to send federal troops to protect nine black students as they entered the school. It was some time earlier, in 1954, that the US Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation was unconstitutional. This book contextualizes events at Little Rock with the unfolding struggle for black rights at local, state, and national levels between 1940 and 1970. It also focuses on the often omitted role played by local black activists in Arkansas. The volume argues that only by understanding the groundwork laid by black activists at the grassroots level in the 40s and 50s can we fully understand the significance of later protests. Moreover, it argues that local-level black activists and black organizations were not homogeneous, but differed significantly in their goals and strategies, thereby adding a multi-dimensional facet to a struggle that was more than just white against black.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

The author has redefined the well-known story of the Little Rock crisis as a product of long-term developments among black citizens in Arkansas. - David Chappell, University of Arkansas

From the Publisher:

Winner of the 2003 J G Ragsdale Book Award, this book draws upon oral history interviews and new material garnered from activists' privately-owned collections, as well as extensive documentation from local, state, regional, and national public archives. It charts new territory in the study of the 1957 Little Rock school crisis and forces a reevaluation of that familiar event and its place in the history of the civil rights struggle.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.