Co-Winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice A Wall Street Journal Favorite Book of the Year A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year A Publishers Weekly Favorite Book of the Year In the United States today, one in every thirty-one adults is under some form of penal control, including one in eleven African American men. How did the “land of the free” become the home of the world’s largest prison system? Challenging the belief that America’s prison problem originated with the Reagan administration’s War on Drugs, Elizabeth Hinton traces the rise of mass incarceration to an ironic source: the social welfare programs of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society at the height of the civil rights era. “An extraordinary and important new book.” —Jill Lepore, New Yorker “Hinton’s book is more than an argument; it is a revelation...There are moments that will make your skin crawl...This is history, but the implications for today are striking. Readers will learn how the militarization of the police that we’ve witnessed in Ferguson and elsewhere had roots in the 1960s.” —Imani Perry, New York Times Book Review

When Shirley Chisholm was asked why she would dare run for president, her response was, why not her? Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm rose from being the child of immigrants to the United States to running for the highest office in the land. Her achievement in doing this as a Black woman was not in spite of her background but rather because of it. She became both the first African American woman elected to the US Congress and the first female African American of a major political party to make a serious run for president of the United States. She persevered by being steadfast in her political convictions and unwillingness to compromise on the issues she believed in. Chisholm directly challenged the political establishment and was successful because she galvanized women, minorities, young people, and the poor not only in her home district in Brooklyn, New York, but across the country. She was that catalyst for change who gave a political voice to so many segments of society who were, up until that time, ignored: women, minorities, the young, members of the gay community, domestic and agricultural workers, and the poor. Her run for the presidency in 1972 was a win in terms of her forging a unified grassroots campaign in which the voices of the previously voiceless joined together for a single cause of voting for someone who supported their diverse but collective interests. As many historians have pointed out, without Shirley Chisholm there may not have been a Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or Kamala Harris.

Martin Luther King's 1965 address from Montgomery, Alabama, the center of much racial conflict at the time and the location of the well-publicized bus boycott a decade earlier, is often considered by historians to be the culmination of the civil rights era in American history. In his momentous speech, King declared that segregation was "on its deathbed" and that the movement had already achieved significant milestones. Although the civil rights movement had won many battles in the struggle for racial equality by the mid-1960s, including legislation to guarantee black voting rights and to desegregate public accommodations, the fight to implement the new laws was just starting. In reality, King's speech in Montgomery represented a new beginning rather than a conclusion to the movement, a fact that King acknowledged in the address. After the Dream: Black and White Southerners since 1965 begins where many histories of the civil rights movement end, with King's triumphant march from the iconic battleground of Selma to Montgomery. Timothy J. Minchin and John Salmond focus on events in the South following the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. After the Dream examines the social, economic, and political implications of these laws in the decades following their passage, discussing the empowerment of black southerners, white resistance, accommodation and acceptance, and the nation's political will. The book also provides a fascinating history of the often-overlooked period of race relations during the presidential administrations of Ford, Carter, Reagan, and both George H. W. and George W. Bush. Ending with the election of President Barack Obama, this study will influence contemporary historiography on the civil rights movement.