A Little Taste Of Freedom: The Black Freedom Struggle In Claiborne County, Mississippi (the John Hope Franklin Series In African American History And Culture)
by Emilye Crosby /
2005 / English / PDF
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In this long-term community study of the freedom movement in rural,
majority-black Claiborne County, Mississippi, Emilye Crosby
explores the impact of the African American freedom struggle on
small communities in general and questions common assumptions that
are based on the national movement. The legal successes at the
national level in the mid 1960s did not end the movement, Crosby
contends, but rather emboldened people across the South to initiate
waves of new actions around local issues.
In this long-term community study of the freedom movement in rural,
majority-black Claiborne County, Mississippi, Emilye Crosby
explores the impact of the African American freedom struggle on
small communities in general and questions common assumptions that
are based on the national movement. The legal successes at the
national level in the mid 1960s did not end the movement, Crosby
contends, but rather emboldened people across the South to initiate
waves of new actions around local issues.
Escalating assertiveness and demands of African
Americans--including the reality of armed self-defense--were
critical to ensuring meaningful local change to a remarkably
resilient system of white supremacy. In Claiborne County, a highly
effective boycott eventually led the Supreme Court to affirm the
legality of economic boycotts for political protest. NAACP leader
Charles Evers (brother of Medgar) managed to earn seemingly
contradictory support from the national NAACP, the segregationist
Sovereignty Commission, and white liberals. Studying both black
activists and the white opposition, Crosby employs traditional
sources and more than 100 oral histories to analyze the political
and economic issues in the postmovement period, the impact of the
movement and the resilience of white supremacy, and the ways these
issues are closely connected to competing histories of the
community.
Escalating assertiveness and demands of African
Americans--including the reality of armed self-defense--were
critical to ensuring meaningful local change to a remarkably
resilient system of white supremacy. In Claiborne County, a highly
effective boycott eventually led the Supreme Court to affirm the
legality of economic boycotts for political protest. NAACP leader
Charles Evers (brother of Medgar) managed to earn seemingly
contradictory support from the national NAACP, the segregationist
Sovereignty Commission, and white liberals. Studying both black
activists and the white opposition, Crosby employs traditional
sources and more than 100 oral histories to analyze the political
and economic issues in the postmovement period, the impact of the
movement and the resilience of white supremacy, and the ways these
issues are closely connected to competing histories of the
community.