The American Civil Rights Movement 1865–1950 is a history of the African American struggle for freedom and equality from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. It synthesizes the disparate black movements, explaining consistent themes and controversies during those years. The main focus is on the black activists who led the movement and the white people who supported them. The principal theme is that African American agency propelled the progress and that whites often helped. Even whites who were not sympathetic to black demands were useful, often because it was to their advantage to act as black allies. Even white opponents could be coerced into cooperation or, at least, non-opposition. White people of good will with shallow understanding were frustrating, but they were sometimes useful. Even if they did not work for black rights, they did not work against them, and sometimes helped because they had no better options. Until now, the history of the African American movement from 1865 to 1950 has not been covered as one coherent story. There have been many histories of African Americans that have treated the subject in one chapter or part of a chapter, and several excellent books have concentrated on a specific time period, such as Reconstruction or World War II. Other books have focused on one aspect of the time, such as lynching or the nature of Jim Crow. This is the first book to synthesize the history of the movement in a coherent whole.

As its name suggests, the civil rights movement is an ongoing process, and the scholars contributing to this volume offer new geographical and temporal perspectives on this crucial American experience. As Clayborne Carson notes in the introduction, the movement involved much more than civil rights reform--it transformed African-American political and social consciousness. In this timely volume John Dittmer provides a new assessment of the effects of grass-roots activists of the movement in Mississippi from 1965 to 1968, to show what happened after the famous Freedom Summer of 1964. George C. Wright shows how African Americans in Kentucky from 1900 to 1970 faced the same racial restrictions and violence as blacks in Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. W. Marvin Dulaney traces the rise and fall of the movement in Dallas from the 1930s through the 1970s while the nation's attention was focused elsewhere.

From the beginning of Reconstruction to the present, traces the struggle of blacks to gain their civil rights in America, with a brief comparison of their problems to those of other minorities.

The historical relationship between American urbanization, industrialization and the emergence of the civil rights movement is examined in this thesis in order to establish why the African-American Civil Rights Movement occurred. The book discusses many factors that were fundamental to causing the rise of the civil rights movement. It begins with a brief introduction to the African-American's political, economic and social conditions since the American Civil War and goes on to consider the effects of the two Great Black Migrations in which millions of black Americans moved to the big industrial cities and began to learn how to make effective use of their voting rights to protect their own interests. Finally the book examines the effect of the Second World War and also the role of the Supreme Court.

The movement for civil rights in America peaked in the 1950s and 1960s; however, a closely related struggle, this time over the movement's legacy, has been heatedly engaged over the past two decades. How the civil rights movement is currently being remembered in American politics and culture--and why it matters--is the common theme of the thirteen essays in this unprecedented collection. Memories of the movement are being created and maintained--in ways and for purposes we sometimes only vaguely perceive--through memorials, art exhibits, community celebrations, and even street names. At least fifteen civil rights movement museums have opened since 1990; Mississippi Burning, Four Little Girls, and The Long Walk Home only begin to suggest the range of film and television dramatizations of pivotal events; corporations increasingly employ movement images to sell fast food, telephones, and more; and groups from Christian conservatives to gay rights activists have claimed the civil rights mantle. Contests over the movement's meaning are a crucial part of the continuing fight against racism and inequality. These writings look at how civil rights memories become established as fact through museum exhibits, street naming, and courtroom decisions; how our visual culture transmits the memory of the movement; how certain aspects of the movement have come to be ignored in its "official" narrative; and how other political struggles have appropriated the memory of the movement. Here is a book for anyone interested in how we collectively recall, claim, understand, and represent the past.

Essays from innovative, leading scholars covering the gamut of the civil rights movement

This excellent introduction to the civil rights movement captures the drama and impact of the black struggle for equality. Written by two of the most respected scholars of African-American history, Steven F. Lawson and Charles Payne examine the individuals who made the movement a success, both at the highest level of government and in the grassroot trenches.