The Civil Rights Movement: A Very Short Introduction: A Very Short Introduction

Abstract The civil rights movement was among the most important historical developments of the twentieth century and one of the most remarkable mass movements in American history. Not only did it decisively change the legal and political status of African Americans, but it prefigured as well the moral premises and methods of struggle for other historically oppressed groups seeking equal standing in American society. And, yet, despite a vague, sometimes begrudging recognition of its immense import, more often than not the Movement has been misrepresented and misunderstood. For the general public, a singular moment, frozen in time at the Lincoln Memorial, sums up much of what Americans know about that remarkable decade of struggle. The Movement provides an informed and nuanced understanding of the origins, character, and objectives of the mid-twentieth-century freedom struggle, privileging the aspirations and initiatives of the ordinary, grassroots people who made it. Emphasizing the conditions of possibility that enabled the heroic initiatives of the common folk over those of their more celebrated leaders, its narrative conveys a sense of what a social movement looks and feels like. Most of all, it shows how an intense historical moment can shape its participants even as they shape it. This groundbreaking book reinserts the critical concept of “movement” back into our image and understanding of the civil rights movement. The Civil Rights Movement was among the most important historical developments of the twentieth century and one of the most remarkable mass movements in American history. Not only did it decisively change the legal and political status of African Americans, but it prefigured as well the moral premises and methods of struggle for other historically oppressed groups seeking equal standing in American society. And, yet, despite a vague, sometimes begrudging recognition of its immense import, more often than not the movement has been misrepresented and misunderstood. For many, a singular moment, frozen in time at the Lincoln Memorial, sums up much of what Americans and the world know about that remarkable decade of struggle. In The Civil Rights Movement: A Very Short Introduction , Thomas C. Holt provides an informed and nuanced understanding of the origins, character, and objectives of the mid-twentieth-century freedom struggle, privileging the aspirations and initiatives of the ordinary, grassroots people who made it. Holt conveys a sense of these developments as a social movement, one that shaped its participants even as they shaped it. He emphasizes the conditions of possibility that enabled the heroic initiatives of the common folk over those of their more celebrated leaders. This groundbreaking book reinserts the critical concept of "movement" back into our image and understanding of the Civil Rights Movement. "It may seem odd that a very short book should have incurred such a long list of people to whom I am endebted, but most of these debts were acquired long before this project was even conceived. Some are owed to my maternal grandmother Carrie for the stories she shared during idle moments on our back porch about the history of the place we inhabited and in other more emotionally charged moments when she silently modeled for a preadolescent boy how one might negotiate its hostile terrain with dignity. Others are owed to my father, whose stories about how our family's history evolved in that hostile place and about the different worlds he had seen far beyond its confining and sometimes confounding boundaries somehow enabled me to think differently about my own place in the world. Growing up in a hostile world can make one self-destructive, but somehow these stories delegitimized its rule and suggested that building a very different world was possible"-- Provided by publisher The Civil Rights Movement was among the most important historical developments of the twentieth century and one of the most remarkable mass movements in American history. In this Very Short Introduction, Thomas C. Holt provides an informed and nuanced understanding of the origins, character, and objectives of the mid-twentieth-century freedom struggle, re-centering the narrative around the mobilization of ordinary people