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Title: I'Ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle by Charles M. Payne ISBN: 0-520-20706-8 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: January, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: If you're going to read one book on civil rights, this is it
Comment: I'd pair the book with a more nationally-oriented one, such as the Taylor Branch trilogy, which give a better sense of national politics, but Payne's book is both profound and profoundly moving in its depiction of local communities and Ella Baker's "Organizing Tradition", which turns a number of assumptions about the movement on their head. I've read the book a few times with students and never fail to be personally engaged and to have invigorating classes with students. Great, great stuff!
Rating: 5
Summary: Brilliance that doesn't blind but illuminates
Comment: I agree with the earlier reviews but I'd like to provide some details about this book's strengths.
First, Payne places the people who made the Mississippi movement at the center the story. He tells the story of both the original local leaders who made it possible for the civil rights movement to happen in Mississippi and the activists who followed their lead in the 1960s.
Second, he extends the time span of the civil rights movement, showing that it would not have been possible without the "organizing tradition" referred to in the subtitle. Payne expertly traces the relationships and linkages between different generations of heroic troublemakers in Mississippi.
Third, he shows that the original radicals, and I mean those who wanted to change Mississippi from its roots, were those who had already challenged the system to achieve personal gain. "Bourgeois" blacks in Mississippi weren't uniformly complacent or fearful. Wisely, Payne does not use this fact to justify any notion of a "talented tenth" that ought to lead the masses.
Fourth, the chapter on Ella Baker is a stunning and riveting account of one heroic troublemaker who didn't receive enough recognition for her efforts.
Fifth, when Payne writes about what we typically consider the civil rights movement, he places you in the midst of the activists and makes you feel their exhileration, exhaustion, frustration, fear, and courage. Scholarly books never have this quality. At the same time, he does this in a historical context and with a critical eye which absolutely illuminate the raw material in a way that first-person and journalistic treatments rarely approach.
For these reasons, and many more, this is clearly the best of many excellent books on the civil rights movement. Some could fault Payne for placing less emphasis on the national and institutional dimensions of the freedom struggle. But, in the case of the black American struggle for freedom, Payne shows us the story begins with, and is carried by, people who tried to change their communities, not their nation.
Rating: 5
Summary: Read this Book!
Comment: As a history major, I have various interests. One of my favorite things to study is the civil rights movement. Of all the books that I have seen, few match the caliber of this book. It takes the state of Mississippi (which may be the book's greatest irony)and shows how powerful a grassroots movement such as the civil rights movement can be with the proper forms of leadership. I urge anyone who is interested in learning about the civil rights movement should start with this book!
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Title: Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi (BLACKS IN THE NEW WORLD) by John Dittmer ISBN: 0252065077 Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr (Pro Ref) Pub. Date: July, 1995 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision by Barbara Ransby ISBN: 0807827789 Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr Pub. Date: 28 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: The Origins of the Urban Crisis by Thomas J. Sugrue ISBN: 0691058881 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 13 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
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Title: In Struggle : SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s by Clayborne Carson, Martin Luther, Jr. King ISBN: 0674447271 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: June, 1995 List Price(USD): $20.50 |
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Title: Suburban Warriors : The Origins of the New American Right by Lisa McGirr ISBN: 0691096112 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 21 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
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