Black Struggle, Red Scare

by Woods, Jeff

• ISBN13: 9780807129265
• ISBN10: 0807129267
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-12-01
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr

Summary

A spellbinding account of the alliance between the forces of southern segregation and anti-Communism. At the height of the cold war, southern segregationists exploited the reigning mood of anxiety by linking the civil rights movement to an international Communist conspiracy. Jeff Woods tells a gripping story of fervent crusaders for racial equality swept into the maelstrom of the South's siege mentality, of crafty political opportunists who played upon white southerners' very real fear of Communists, and of a people who saw lurking enemies and detected red propaganda everywhere. Concentrating on the phenomenon at its most intense period, Woods makes vivid the fearful synergy that developed between racist forces and the anti-Communist cause, reveals the often illegal means used to wash the movement red, and documents the gross waste of public funds in pursuing an almost nonexistent threat. Though ultimately unsuccessful in convincing Americans outside of Dixie that the civil rights protests were run by Moscow, the southern red scare forced movement activists to

Author Biography

Jeff Woods is an assistant professor of history at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Abbreviations	xi
Introduction	1	(11)
1 Red and Black	12	(37)
2 Designed to Harass	49	(36)
3 Little HUACs and Little FBIs	85	(27)
4 Conspiracy So Immense	112	(87)
5 Black, White, and Red All Over 143
6 The Southern Red Scare and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 169
7 The Southern Red Scare and the Voting Rights Act of 1965	199	(27)
8 Black Power, Red Scare	226	(28)
Epilogue	254	(17)
Bibliography 259
Index	271