Why read Rabble Rousers?

Book cover of Rabble Rousers: The American Far Right in the Civil Rights Era

Book description

This title connects civil rights opponents to America's tradition of radical conservatism. The decade following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision saw white southerners mobilize in massive resistance to racial integration. Most segregationists conceded that ultimately they could only postpone the demise of Jim Crow. Some militant whites,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Rabble Rousers as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

D.J. Mulloy

Author

We tend to think that the success of the civil rights movement in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s was somehow inevitable. But as Clive Webb shows in this marvelous history, this was not really the case. Resistance to civil rights, especially in the South, was deep-seated, widespread, and vicious.

Unearthing the almost forgotten history of racist extremists such as Bryant Bowles, John Kaspar, J.B. Stoner, Rear Admiral John Crommelin, and Major General Edwin Walker, Webb reminds us of the sobering reality that there is often very little separating extremist voices from those of many “ordinary” Americans.

From D.J.'s list on The best books for understanding the history of white supremacy in the United States.