Free at Last: What Really Happened When Civil Rights Came to Southern Politics - Hardcover

Edds, Margaret

9780917561375: Free at Last: What Really Happened When Civil Rights Came to Southern Politics

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0917561376 ISBN 13: 9780917561375

Publisher: Adler & Adler Pub, 1987

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Examines the changes that have taken place in the lives of Southern Blacks

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From Library Journal:

There's an important irony in the title of this collection of essays about the effects of the civil rights revolution on Southern local politics: Blacks are "free at last" to vote, to eat and shop with whites, and to hold political office, but they have not achieved social and economic equality. Focusing on different centers of civil rights activity, including Selma, Birmingham, and Atlanta, Virginia journalist Edds shows how the black vote has affected the local political leadership and how black and white citizens have reacted. She draws on interviews with black and white political leaders, and paints a muddied picture of frustrated expectations and surprising progress. Informative and well-written, the book provides a realistic context in which to judge the second Reconstruction. Jack Forman, Mesa Coll. Lib., San Diego, Cal.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this thorough, well-written study, Virginian Pilot/Ledger Star reporter Edds shows how the 1965 Voting Rights Act has transformed the South, bringing more than 2300 blacks to elected office by 1985. Yet the effects of that lawwhich protects black voting rightshave been mixed, and social and economic barriers persist, she writes. Edds's several hundred interviews in Deep South states provide an array of striking stories of changes in the past two decades: from Atlanta's rise as a "mecca" of racial harmony under black mayors Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young, to rural Alabama's growing black leadership despite the continuing political dominance of whites. Blacks hold mainly lower-level posts but are destined to play an increasingly aggressive role in Southern politics, argues Edds.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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