From Rights to Economics - (New Perspectives on the History of the South) by Timothy J Minchin (Paperback)

About the Book

Rich with the voices of Black and white southern workers, this broad collection of essays shows how African Americans have continued fighting for economic parity in the decades since the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

Book Synopsis

Examining the African American struggle for economic parity in the South after the 1960s

Rich with the voices of Black and white southern workers, From Rights to Economics shows how African Americans have continued fighting for economic parity in the decades since the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

Using oral histories and case studies that focus on Black activism throughout the entire South, award-winning historian Timothy Minchin examines the work of grassroots groups--including the Southern Regional Council and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund--who struggled with the economic dimensions of the movement.

While white workers and managers resisted integration, activists' efforts gradually secured a wider range of job opportunities for Black people. Minchin shows, however, that the decline of manufacturing industry in the South has been especially difficult for the African American community, wiping out many good jobs just as Black people were gaining access to them.

Minchin also offers a detailed discussion of a major school integration battle in Louisville, Kentucky, and examines the role of affirmative action in the ongoing Black struggle.



A volume in the series New Perspectives on the History of the South, edited by John David Smith

Review Quotes

"Minchin's gripping stories are engaging and offer an important contribution to a growing body of scholarship."--Journal of American History



"Especially
important in highlighting the crucial intersection between Black
activism and federal policy and intervention; the nature and extent of
continuing white supremacy and Black protest; and the evolving positions
taken by the federal government in the battle over entrenched racial
discrimination."--Journal of Southern History



"Shows
how the success of the civil rights movement was the essential
inspiration that energized new strategies and renewed commitments to
campaign for African American economic equality. . . . Chronicle[s] the
voices of African American workers and the union, community, religious,
and political leaders struggling for economic justice in a new era of
American history."--Labor Studies Journal



"Covers
new ground and forces us to reevaluate how the movements transpired
after the mid-1960s. . . . An important and valuable work for civil
rights and labor scholars."--Journal of American Ethnic History



"[Shows]
that southern Black economic progress after 1965 required ongoing
struggle through political pressure, publicity, negotiation and
litigation in order to realize the potential of the Civil Rights Act."--Southern Quarterly



"Successfully
sheds light on both the unique strategies activists used to expand
Black economic opportunity . . . as well as significant, however
overlooked, episodes in the ongoing civil rights era."--Florida Historical Quarterly



"The
great benefit of this book is its illumination in one volume of some of
the complexities of the continuing struggle for civil rights after
1965."--North Carolina Historical Review



"Successfully
sheds light on both the unique strategies activists used to expand
Black economic opportunity . . . as well as significant, however
overlooked, episodes in the ongoing Civil Rights Era."--Florida Historical Quarterly



"The
great benefit of this book is its illumination in one volume of some of
the complexities of the continuing struggle for civil rights after
1965."--North Carolina Historical Review



About the Author

Timothy J. Minchin is professor of North American history at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.