Description
Book SynopsisIn the 1960s, Mississippi was the heart of white southern resistance to the civil-rights movement. This work shows how Mississippi leaders strategically accommodated themselves to the demands of civil-rights activists and the federal government seeking to end Jim Crow, and in so doing contributed to a vibrant conservative countermovement.
Trade ReviewWinner of the 2008 Lillian Smith Book Award, Southern Regional Council Winner of the 2007 McLemore Prize for the Best Mississippi History Book "In his study of Mississippi, Crespino provides a challenging, comprehensive examination of white southerners confronting the modern Civil Rights Movement. While focusing on the actions, strategies, and beliefs from the Brown v. Board of Education decision to the rise of Ronald Reagan in 1980, Crespino successfully reevaluates the perspective of southern whites beyond the Ku Klux Klan and those espousing virulent racism."--J. Michael Bitzer, Choice "In this important and engagingly written book historian Joseph Crespino has examined Mississippi's white population and has discovered more complexity, and much more change over time, than Phil Ochs [in his biting anthem, 'Here's to the State of Mississippi'] would have thought possible."--Bruce Nelson, Journal of Southern History "Elucidating the connection between modern conservatives who avow racial equality and the southern segregationists who so strongly resisted it, ... Crespino counters the facile historical claims of conservatives who identify their movement with the religious, nonviolent, and integrationist civil rights crusades of the 1950s and early 1960s."--Paul V. Murphy, American Historical Review "Crespino navigates ... with consummate skill, offering clear understandings of state and national politics and basing his linkages of the two fields on solid evidence... In Search of Another Country is a stellar work of historical scholarship, powerfully researched, organized, and argued."--Peter N. Stearns, Journal of Social History "In Search of Another Country is an excellent addition to the growing literature on the Republican counterrevolution in the American South. It is well researched and deftly argued. Although the layman might not appreciate its careful attention to detail, the specialist will. Indeed, it is a book that deserves a place on the shelf of every research library."--Barton C. Shaw, Journal of American Studies
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations and Tables ix Abbreviations xiii Acknowledgments xv INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE: Practical Segregation 18 CHAPTER TWO: The Limits of Resistance 49 CHAPTER THREE: "The Heartland of Conservative America" 75 CHAPTER FOUR: Racial Troubleshooting 108 CHAPTER FIVE: The Ambivalence of White Christians 144 CHAPTER SIX: The Irony of School Desegregation 173 CHAPTER SEVEN: Southern Strategies in Mississippi 205 CHAPTER EIGHT: Mississippi Kulturkampf 237 CONCLUSION 267 Notes 279 Index 343
