FURTHER READING
The civil rights movement is one of the most studied aspects of American his-
tory, and the sources that follow are hardly exhaustive. The earliest writings
came from journalists and nonhistorian scholars, including attorneys, polit-
ical scientists, and sociologists. Many activists have penned revealing, some-
times riveting, accounts of their harrowing experiences. When historians
first turned their attention to the subject, they believed that the movement
was a political reform best studied from the vantage point of public policy in
Washington. They focused on national black leadership and organizations
that pressed presidents, Congress, and federal judges to act. In the late
1970s, scholars redirected their attention to communities and regions such
as Greensboro, Birmingham, and the Mississippi delta, where local activists
organized on their own. Scholars have also incorporated the roles of women
and organized labor, and analyzed the topics of education and religion.
Collective biographies of several figures, such as black women, white
women, and southern clergymen, have been particularly illuminating. More
recent studies have stressed the Cold War in shaping America’s response
to racism at home and its foreign policy in less developed countries. Most
recently, scholars have suggested that national concern for civil rights began
after World War I and continued into Richard Nixon’s administration. An
excellent overview of civil rights historiography can be found in Charles
Eagles, ‘Toward New Histories of the Civil Rights Era,’ Journal of Southern
History66 (November 2000), pp. 815– 48.Origins of Racism
Convincing works on the connection between slavery and racism are Bernard
Lewis, Race and Color in Islam(1971), Ronald Segal, Islam’s Black Slaves
(2001), Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery (1997),
Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black(1968), Scott Malcomson, One Drop ofTHEC_Z01.qxd 3/26/08 6:10 PM Page 157