Cold War Civil Rights - by Mary L Dudziak

Book Synopsis

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year
How the fight for civil rights in America became an important front in the Cold War

In 1958, an African American handyman named Jimmy Wilson was sentenced to die in Alabama for stealing less than two dollars. Shocking as this sentence was, it was overturned only after intense international attention and the interference of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Soon after World War II, American racism became a major concern of US allies, a chief Soviet propaganda theme, and an obstacle to American Cold War goals throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Racial segregation undermined the American image, harming foreign relations in every administration from Truman to Johnson. Mary Dudziak shows how the Cold War helped to facilitate desegregation and other key social reforms at home as the United States sought to polish its image abroad, yet how a focus on appearances over substance limited the nature and extent of progress. Cold War Civil Rights situates the Cold War in civil rights history while giving an international perspective to the fight for racial justice in America.

Review Quotes

"Cold War Civil Rights challenges readers to think globally and locally about the relation between the Cold War and civil rights. It also provides food for thought on the post-Cold War era."---Laurie B. Green, Law and History Review

"[An] important book"---H. W. Brands, Reviews in American History

"[A] meticulously researched and eloquently composed study."---Desmond King, Times Higher Education

"A model of scholarship. [Dudziak's] work represents detailed archival research at its best."---Paul Gordon Lauren, Human Rights Quarterly

"An intelligent and informative book that is sure to become a staple of both civil rights and Cold War historiography."---Steven F. Lawson, American Historical Review

"Carefully reasoned, containing vivid accounts, and thoroughly documented with illustrations and 55 pages of explanatory notes, this work helps us rethink the familiar by analyzing the subject matter from a new perspective. It will have broad appeal to historians, other academicians and lay readers interested in American foreign policy and race relations."-- "Library Journal"

"Dudziak earns high praise for her superb work."-- "Choice"

"Dudziak has marshalled an impressive array of primary source material to substantiate her case, but is is never allowed to hinder the unfolding narrative of the civil rights movement in general or her thesis in particular. . . . [An] excellent study."---George Lewis, Ethnic & Racial Studies

"Dudziak marvelously frames her discussion of the US civil rights movement in the international and Cold War context in such a way that raises, discusses, and illuminates larger issues that help us to understand how the struggle for human rights proceeds."---Carlo Krieger, Human Rights Quarterly

"Dudziak's argument is clearly written, prodigiously researched, and profoundly important. . . . Cold War Civil Rights . . . is the most comprehensively researched study of the connection between foreign and domestic racial politics in the post-World War II era. Dudziak's book will inspire a reconsideration of postwar civil rights history."---Alex Lubin, American Quarterly

"Groundbreaking."-- "American Lawyer"

"In her long-awaited book, Mary Dudziak brilliantly demonstrates the interconnections between race relations and the American response to the early Cold War. . . . Dudziak sets a new standard for literature on race and Cold War foreign policy. . . . Her work deserves a wide audience."---Laura A. Belmonte, Journal of Cold War Studies

"Mary Dudziak's sophisticated account of race, reform, and international relations in post-World War II America is an outstanding work that should help historians rethink the early Cold War era."---David Farber, H-Net Reviews

"Mary L. Dudziak . . . astutely explores the intimate relationship between the policy of communist containment and the civil rights movement. . . . Her book thoughtfully and thoroughly documents how ridiculous and hypocritical we appeared to the post-colonial, newly emerging nations of Africa and Asia by championing the ideals of freedom, democracy and economic equity around the world while at the same time shamelessly denying access to those very same principles to millions of Americans at home."---Edward C. Smith, The Washington Times

"This nuanced, scholarly appraisal of the relationship between foreign policy and the civil rights story offers a fresh and provocative perspective on twentieth-century American history."-- "Harvard Law Review"

About the Author

Mary L. Dudziak is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University. Her books include War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences and Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall's African Journey.