Inside Agitators : White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement

by Chappell, David L.

• ISBN13: 9780801852343
• ISBN10: 080185234X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-04-22
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

Summary

"With keen insight, Chappell argues that not only were white southerners far from solid in their commitment to segregation during the civil rights era, but that the movement actively exploited and widened their divisions to achieve both local victories and federal intervention." -- Mark Newman, Journal of American Studies"One of the many virtues of David Chappell's fascinating study is that he does not romanticize white southerners who were sympathetic toward the civil rights movement. Rather than depicting them simply as courageous dissenters, he shows that their motives for supporting civil rights reform were varied and complex -- a mixture of altruism, pragmatism, paternalism, guilt, and numerous other idiosyncratic sentiments." -- Clayborne Carson, Editor of the Papers of Martin Luther King Jr."Chappell is to be commended for struggling with hard questions about historical causation." -- Robert J. Norrell, Journal of American History

Author Biography

David Chappell teaches history at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
Introduction
The Strange Career of Racial Dissent in the South
The "Silent South": The Founding Fathers of Southern White Dissent	p. 3
From Silence to Futility: Southern White Dissent Gets Organized	p. 25
The Strategy of Nonviolence and the Role of White Southerners in the Movement
The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1956	p. 53
Tallahassee, 1956-1957	p. 84
Little Rock, 1957-1959	p. 97
Albany, Georgia, 1961-1962	p. 122
The Art of the Possible: The White Southerner in the National State
The Late 1950s: Saving the Party from Civil Rights	p. 147
Lyndon Johnson Takes Center Stage - and Then an Intermission	p. 169
Policy in High Gear: From the Justice Department to the Acts of 1964 and 1965	p. 189
Epilogue: Interpreting the Movement	p. 212
Abbreviations	p. 229
Notes	p. 231
Bibliographical Essay	p. 277
Index	p. 295
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