The Civil Rights Movement: A Very Short Introduction

The Civil Rights Movement: A Very Short Introduction by Thomas C Holt

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.

Even readers well-versed in the subject will learn from Holt's close attention to lesser-known figures, events, and organizationsThis well-informed history casts the civil rights struggle in a new light. * Publishers Weekly *
[This] concise but comprehensive history of the US civil rights movement pulls off an ambitious balancing act, placing the African-American fight for equality within its wider political and social context - all without losing sight of the campaigners on the frontline ... a hugely humanistic overview. * BBC History Revealed *
An essential and readable primer on the mid-20th-century civil rights movement... Holt adroitly traces the evolution of activism throughout time and across regions. * The New York Times Book Review *

Thomas C. Holt is James Westfall Thompson Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of American and African American History at the University of Chicago and the author of Children of Fire: A History of African Americans and The Problem of Race in the Twenty-First Century.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780190605421
ISBN 10	0190605421
Title	The Civil Rights Movement: A Very Short Introduction
Author	Thomas C Holt
Series	Very Short Introductions
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Oxford University Press Inc
Year published	2023-02-23
Number of pages	176
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable