Description
Book SynopsisA history of Black struggles for human dignity, equality, and opportunity in Atlanta from the early 1960s through the end of the initial term of Maynard Jackson, the city's first Black mayor, in 1977. It highlights the work of grassroots activists, who take centre stage alongside well-known figures.
Trade Review“
Challenging U.S. Apartheid is a brilliant and provocative contribution to our understanding of the Black freedom movement in Atlanta in the 1960s and 1970s. While Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy has long dominated our understanding of the movement in Atlanta, Winston A. Grady-Willis forces us to look again with a wider lens and a new set of sensibilities. With insight and eloquence he demonstrates the pivotal role of women and Atlanta’s Black working class in the fight for racial and economic justice and self-determination. He does not simply give a polite nod to issues of gender and class. Rather, these modes of analysis take center stage in his thinking and in his work. Grady-Willis has done for Atlanta what Charles Payne and John Dittmer did for Mississippi. This book is a must-read for anyone serious about understanding the landmark social justice struggles of the 1960s and 1970s.”—Barbara Ransby, author of
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision“By deploying the frames of apartheid and human rights to analyze social struggle in the Black U.S. urban context, Winston A. Grady-Willis’s work asks scholars to rethink the way we characterize Black demands and, therefore, their relationship to a broader activist cadre and global politics.”—Rhonda Y. Williams, author of
The Politics of Public Housing: Black Women's Struggles Against Urban Inequality“This book is an important addition to the literary examination of the Civil Rights Movement. Atlanta nurtured the intellectual, intuitive, and creative spirits of Movement leaders because it was a crossroads of progressive thought, merging a morally conscious academic, religious, and business community into a galvanizing force in American history. Winston A. Grady-Willis takes a serious, researched approach to his analysis of a city often called the ‘Little New York’ or the ‘Gateway to the South.’ He helps us understand its contemporary role in modern history as a Gateway to the New America.”—U.S. Representative John Lewis
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Challenging U.S. Apartheid is a fascinating read not only of the frontline struggles that brought down Jim Crow, but for its account of how political consciousness took shape and broadened over the course of a generation.” -- Lee Wengraf * International Socialist Review *
“[A] comprehensive, penetrating history of black activism in Atlanta. . . . A thoughtful interpretation of vital themes in the black experience that should encourage further discussion and debate. Summing Up: Highly recommended.” -- H. Shapiro * Choice *
“Grady-Willis’s analysis of Atlanta movements and their interaction with ‘national’ organizations and personalities makes a major contribution to the study of modern American civil and human rights movements. . . . Grady-Willis’s narrative writing style is accessible enough to sustain the attention of undergraduates . . . . [The book] is among the very best examples of this new generation of civil rights scholarship. It not only adds to what scholars have already written about movements in Atlanta and other communities but also problematizes and reframes the questions scholars should be asking about the civil rights movement in all of its manifestations.” -- J. Todd Moye * American Historical Review *
“Winston A. Grady-Willis has made and important contribution to the historiography of the black freedom movement. . . .
Challenging U.S. Apartheid is an important read for anyone interested in Black Power, Atlanta history, and the internationalization of the African American human rights struggle.” -- John Matthew Smith * Journal of Social History *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements ix
Prologue xiii
Abbreviations xxiii
PART I: NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION
1. The Committee on Appeal for Human Rights and Phase One of the Direct Action Campaign 3
2. Phase Two of the Direct Action Campaign and the Fall of Petty Apartheid in Atlanta 33
PART II: DEMANDING BLACK POWER
3. Bridges 59
4. The Atlanta Project of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 79
5. Neighborhood Protest and the Voices of the Black Working Poor 114
PART III: THE QUEST FOR SELF-DETERMINATION
6. Black Studies and the Birth of the Institute of the Black World 143
7. The Multi-front Black Struggle for Human Rights 169
Epilogue 206
Notes 213
Bibliography 265
Indez 281
