Speak Now Against The Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South
A historical study that recovers Black resistance, organizing, and local memory in the South before the civil-rights era. It shows how struggles outside the formal system created the foundation for later movement politics.
Work Information
A portrait of the South’s civil-rights prehistory, told from the ground up.
By tracing the memory and resistance held in Black communities across the South, the book shows that the civil-rights movement did not appear all at once. It layers testimony and local history to make visible the long time that came before the movement proper.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Knopf
- Published
- 1994-10-18
- Pages
- 704 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 17.15 x 6.99 x 24.13 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780679408086
- ISBN-10
- 0679408088
- Category
- 洋書/Politics & Social Sciences/Politics & Government/Specific Topics/Civics & Citizenship
With 48 pages of photographs
Reviews
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John Egerton is from my hometown, so maybe I’m biased. But this book is essential to fully grasping the American civil rights movement. Highly recommended.
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Book arrived in excellent condition. Just as it was described.
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Although it is certainly not as well known or acclaimed as Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters, Egerton's Speak Now Against the Day, is perhaps my favorite book on the civil rights movement. Stories of origins are always interesting and this tale of the activists in the generation prior to the modern movement is riveting, especially in its telling of the story of many who have been forgotten, some of whom were never well known. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning about this period, about the enormous courage, strengths, and blind spots of those who led the way - the John the Baptists if you will. Many were white southern liberals, some were moderate segregationists, others were radicals. They tried to convince their brethren of the necessity of change. Their failure set the stage for the titanic clashes of the '50s and '60's and as well as the counter-reaction which followed.
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This book addresses the Civil Rights movement between 1930 and 1954, providing invaluable background to the struggle in the 1960's. The author describes President Harry Truman's important role with his Civil Rights Commission's report and Truman's desegregation of the federal Civil Service and military. Many of the legislative successes of the 1960's were built on the Truman Commission's work.