Customer Reviews

Speak Now Against The Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The author reviews the period of American history between 1930 and 1954 with the central goal of illuminating the foundations of our civil rights movement. The depth, detail and accessability of this information is without peer; any reader will have their insight into American racism expanded, as well as their knowledge of the many people who have opposed racism and bigotry. One important lesson is demonstrated over and over again: We do not need to be perfect to stand up for what is right. Again and again, the author tells us stories about people who were clearly imperfect, narrow-minded, or flawed; yet these same people were able to change their communities for the better. The author clearly shows that the period from 1945 to 1954 was a time of possibility, of potential. Americans had an opportunity then to improve race relations in our nation, yet they turned away from that choice. Today, with headlines about OJ blaring, with so many people deserting the cities, we would do well to heed the lesssons offered in this book.

I found this a stupendous book, and while at times I felt I was treading well-known ground, and at times the account of the efforts of groups battling to end segregation was overly extensive in discussing individuals of little present fame, the book reads pleasantly and effortlessly, with the decision in Brown v. Board of Education as the good finale. I would recommend that after reading this book one should read Simple Justice, by Richard Kluger, which tells the story of Brown v. Board of Education itself superlatively. The title of this book is from a statement by William Faulkner heavy with prophetic insight: "We speak now against the day when our Southern people who will resist to the last these inevitable changes in social relations, will, when they have been forced to accept what they at one time might have accepted with dignity and goodwill, will say: 'Why didn't someone tell us this before? Tell us this in time?'"

A recent work by MacPherson on the battle of Antietam attempts to locate the turning point in the Civil War. Reading this work one wonders if the whole history of abolition is not a series of endless turning points against eternal delays. This very cogent work by someone acquainted with the facts is an invaluable expose of how politics actually works in that scarface Uncle Sam's 'democracy' of equals. Giving the history and gritty details of post-Reconstruction politics dominated by the Bourbon elites, it is essential reading for anyone attempting to decipher the legacy of the Civil Rights movement this period prefigures, and starts to anticipate. Histories of Roosevelt's presidency don't always make clear what was going on, and the obstacles he faced. Nor do we quite assess the effect of the Second World War on the economic context behind Jim Crow in its ad infinitum history of domination, political manipulation, and class and racial struggle. We can see the great tide turning in the thirties and forties, as the struggle begins just to recoup the ground lost in the 1870's and after, Lyndon Johnson's voting rights bill a resurrection of the same failed bill of the Redemption era. Out of many issues in this very useful book is a reminder of how Lyndon Johnson, extremely adept in this Lost Cause dominion, was deftly able at the right moment to get the job done, if it has been done. With this history, keep your eyes peeled. We could be far short of 'done'.

In order to understand a thing, you must understand what came before it. The 22 years before the *Brown v. Board of Education* were a period of rapid transition in the American Southeast that made the regime of segregation unsustainable, and much of that transition was as drastic as the Civil Rights Movement itself. This book does furnish an invaluable introduction to the historical figures of the pre-MLK South. It also supplies a brisk summary of many of the most sensational or consequential events; and it also describes many of the critical social indicators of the region, in comparison with the rest of the USA.

Unfortunately, the effect is like a catalogue rather than an historical narrative. There are interludes where he does do a wonderful job of storytelling, as with the climax of the Brown versus Board of Education deliberations, or various hideous incidents of white supremacist violence against African Americans. He cites these often, as indeed is fitting since there was a constant drumbeat of these violent acts in the public consciousness of everyone. He alludes to the "sulfurous" rhetoric of figures like Sen. Theodore G. Bilbo (D-MS), a supporter of the New Deal in FDR's first term; but he seldom furnishes examples. Since there are supposedly many degrees of "badness," this omission is unfortunate.

To his credit, Egerton also reminds us that all of the Southern legislators acted in unison to squelch civil rights measures, such as anti-lynching laws.

Because of the great number of personalities that Egerton introduces again and again, there is seldom a vivid mental hook. The effect is rather like reading a very long collection of 3-sentence obituaries, sorted by ideological affinities or jobs. Again and again we are assured that everything in the South was very complex and very nuanced, and that it is important to draw deep distinctions among the various flavors of the elites, whether in politics, journalism, civil society, or education. But either Egerton is not interested in an analytical exposition of how these differences work, or he lacked the space to supply them. Surprising as it might perhaps seem, 627 pages is not a lot of distance to cover the separate threads of New Deal disintegration, regional polarization, education, scores of prominent Southern politicians, dozens of writers or editors, a smattering of obscure radicals, and an endless array of anguished white liberals. In his effort to find some redemption in the courage of white liberals, Egerton devotes an ocean of ink to the utterly inconsequential bickering and resolutions of the Southern Conference on Human Welfare (SCHW) and its rival, the Southern Regional Council (SRC).

It's possible to recognize that the men and women of these two middle class white liberal organizations faced a fearsome uphill battle against the racism and smugness of their reactionary neighbors, and at the same time, see that their excruciating struggle to chip atoms away from the mountain of Southern racism was not even a sideshow. Even the feeblest efforts to criticize segregation provoked shrieks of quarrelling among the genteel "liberals," who were strangely indifferent to the complete indifference their region held them in. Their divisions led each hairline fracture to accuse the membership to its immediate left of being "red." This monopolizes Egerton's, so that anything that might lend memorability or analysis to the narrative is tightly squeezed into the remainder; the major developments that actually did lead to the demise of segregation remain, for the most part, a mystery.

Although it is certainly not as well known or acclaimed as Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters, Egerton's Speak Now Against the Day, is perhaps my favorite book on the civil rights movement. Stories of origins are always interesting and this tale of the activists in the generation prior to the modern movement is riveting, especially in its telling of the story of many who have been forgotten, some of whom were never well known. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning about this period, about the enormous courage, strengths, and blind spots of those who led the way - the John the Baptists if you will. Many were white southern liberals, some were moderate segregationists, others were radicals. They tried to convince their brethren of the necessity of change. Their failure set the stage for the titanic clashes of the '50s and '60's and as well as the counter-reaction which followed.

The precedent for any book about the history of the modern Civil Rights movement

For those of us who are familiar with Civil Rights, Egerton's book (along with his pathetic, overblown prose) is a letdown and a bore.