Customer Reviews

And Justice for All: The United States Commission on Civil Rights and the Continuing Struggle for Freedom in America

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Dr Berry has written a compelling story of the troubled history of the Civil Rights Commission. It focuses on the people who came to the Commission for help and not just on the Commissioners. It includes numerous pictures of the ordinary people who were helped. It also includes details of the conflicts with successive Presidents who were reluctant to enforce civil rights - some of whom will surprise you. It traces the history of the Commission which time and again had to struggle to maintain it's existence against numerous forces bent on it's destruction.
Not only is it a very scholarly book with abundant notes including White House documents and oral interviews, but it is also a very readable book. It makes a persuasive case for a human rights commission patterned after the original Civil Rights Commission to deal with today's problems and issues. Anyone who is interested in how we continue to move forward and how we came this far should be interested in this book

I did not realize the major role this little known government agency played in turning the hopes of the civil rights movement into law that has changed America. The author details how Commissioners courageously held hearings and made investigations even when threatened by local opponents of the change the civil rights protestors sought. More importantly. people who suffered abuse from beatings and shootings and whose livelihoods were threatened came to tell the Commission their concerns and received help. The commissioners also took on government officials even presidents who were slow to enforce the law so many had struggled to achieve. It is a wonderful story. beautifully written, that celebrates without over romanticizing our history. "

Mary Frances Barry's biased, self-congratulatory, polemic of the trials and travails of the civil rights commission over the past decades and her brilliant participation in it. Lots of minutae especially in discussing how presidential administrations, after Eisenhower, were not as deferential to the commission as she believes they should have been. She blames the Reagan administration particularly for inflicting permanent damage on the commission. Barry reaches the conclusion du jour that there has been progress in civil rights since Eisenhower was president but there is still a long way to go, notwithstanding the successes of black Americans including Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama. Nothing new or insightful. This overlong book would have benefited from competent editing.