Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North [Hardcover]

Thomas J. Sugrue (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 2008

The struggle for racial equality in the North has been a footnote in most books about civil rights in America. Now this monumental new work from one of the most brilliant historians of his generation sets the record straight. Sweet Land of Liberty is an epic, revelatory account of the abiding quest for justice in states from Illinois to New York, and of how the intense northern struggle differed from and was inspired by the fight down South.

Thomas Sugrue’s panoramic view sweeps from the 1920s to the present–more than eighty of the most decisive years in American history. He uncovers the forgotten stories of battles to open up lunch counters, beaches, and movie theaters in the North; the untold history of struggles against Jim Crow schools in northern towns; the dramatic story of racial conflict in northern cities and suburbs; and the long and tangled histories of integration and black power.

Appearing throughout these tumultuous tales of bigotry and resistance are the people who propelled progress, such as Anna Arnold Hedgeman, a dedicated churchwoman who in the 1930s became both a member of New York’s black elite and an increasingly radical activist; A. Philip Randolph, who as America teetered on the brink of World War II dared to threaten FDR with a march on Washington to protest discrimination–and got the Fair Employment Practices Committee (“the second Emancipation Proclamation”) as a result; Morris Milgram, a white activist who built the Concord Park housing development, the interracial answer to white Levittown; and Herman Ferguson, a mild-mannered New York teacher whose protest of a Queens construction site led him to become a key player in the militant Malcolm X’s movement.

Filled with unforgettable characters and riveting incidents, and making use of information and accounts both public and private, such as the writings of obscure African American journalists and the records of civil rights and black power groups, Sweet Land of Liberty creates an indelible history. Thomas Sugrue has written a narrative bound to become the standard source on this essential subject.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. According to Sugrue (The Origins of the Urban Crises), most histories of the civil rights movement focus on the South and the epic battles between nonviolent protestors and the defenders of Jim Crow during the 1950s and 1960s. The author's groundbreaking account covers a wider time frame and turns the focus northward to the states with the largest black populations outside the south. Sugrue highlights seminal people, books and organizations in his tightly focused study that restores many largely forgotten Northern activists as integral participants in the civil rights movement—such as Philadelphia pastor Leon Sullivan; Roxanne Jones of the welfare rights movement and first black woman elected to the Pennsylvania State Senate; and James Forman, advocate for reparations. The National Negro Congress, the Revolutionary Action Movement and the National Black Political Convention share history with the NAACP and the Urban League, as Sugrue traces the phoenixlike risings from the ashes of old organizations into new. Dense with boycotts, pickets, agitation, riots, lobbying, litigation, and legislation, the book is heavily detailed but consistently readable with unparalleled scope and fresh focus. (Nov.)
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Review

"Mention the civil rights movement and Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis spring to mind. Rarely do we recall Boston, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland. But there was a civil rights movement in the North, Thomas J. Sugrue reminds us in "Sweet Land of Liberty," and it is impossible to understand race relations today without pondering what we can learn from it. Sugrue's exhaustively researched book brings that movement back to life." --New York Times Book Review

"The election of Barack Obama... calls into question the rigid dichotomies that have defined the American conflict over inequality. Thomas Sugrue's evocative and richly documented new book, Sweet Land of Liberty, is well timed because it addresses the most blinding and fundamental of these dichotomies, that between the southern land of slavery and Jim Crow and the ill-defined rest of the country....The book covers more fresh ground than any history of race has in many years. " --Newsday

“With telling detail and crystalline prose, Sugrue has explained the rise, course of, and difficulties inherent in the freedom struggles of black Americans in the North…. Every American historian needs to read it, and so do policymakers.” --Christianity Today, Book-of-the-Week (11/3/2008)

“Groundbreaking…. unparalleled scope and fresh focus.” –Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Sweeping, well-documented history of the struggle for racial equality above the Mason-Dixon Line.” –Kirkus

"How can an administration elected through an appeal to racial transcendence understand—and combat—the tenacity of racialized injustice? ...Thomas Sugrue’s book might be the timeliest place to start." --New York Observer

"The struggle for civil rights in the North, often overshadowed, gets a comprehensive review...Sugrue's scholarship is most impressive in his analysis of the social, economic, and political currents that swirled around the activists." --Boston Globe

"Sugrue’s book is something to be celebrated. We all know the injustice that pervaded the South and the struggles of Civil Rights movement to overcome it. But many of us don’t know that many similar obstacles still had to be overcome in the North. Sugrue humanizes the history he tells, using individuals’ narratives to remind us of an important truth: “the struggle for racial equality in the North continues.”--Harvard Crimson

"Sweet Land of Liberty... is to be praised for how it highlights the richness, complexity, and endurance of a long black freedom struggle north of the Mason-Dixon Line. It skillfully guides the reader through many twists and turns over nearly a century of civil rights history. It is a profoundly important book that reminds us that the Civil Rights struggle was a national, not simply a regional phenomenon." --ehistory
"Historian Thomas J. Sugrue writes incisively about racial discrimination in the North...richly detailed." --Wilson Quarterly

"In Sweet Land of Liberty, Sugrue supplies a sweeping and searching re-interpretation of the black freedom struggle north of the Mason-Dixon line from the 1920s to the present."
--Tulsa World

“Sugrue’s chronicle covers a pivotal era in American history in a comprehensive sweep.”
–-Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Book-Pick-of-the-Week” (11/3/2008)

“The most important work of American history published this year.” –Religion in American History Blogspot

“With telling detail and crystalline prose, Sugrue has explained the rise, course of, and difficulties inherent in the freedom struggles of black Americans in the North…. Every American historian needs to read it, and so do policymakers.”-- eHistory

“Brims with insights broadening and deepening understanding of the black-white mold of modern America….Essential for collections on U.S. history, social movements, race relations, or civil rights.”  –Library Journal

"Although dozens of books have been written about the struggle for civil rights in the South, this is one of the first documented histories of the fight that occurred north of the Mason-Dixon Line. The author, a historian at the University of Pennsylvania, sifted through government reports, civil rights group records, the work of black journalists and even the personal accounts of ordinary people to document how our political and social institutions created and maintained racial separation and racial privilege. Covering a span from the 1920s through the present, this unconventional and groundbreaking book examines 80 of the most defining years of America's past. This landmark study is elegantly written and nothing less than a stunning achievement."
--Tuscon Citizen

“Sweet Land of Liberty is a revelatory, daring, and ambitious book that overturns the conventional histories of America’s struggle for civil rights. In this powerful narrative, Thomas Sugrue draws compelling vignettes of the forgotten women and men who fought against the odds for racial justice in the North. He persuasively argues that what happened on the streets, churches, and courtrooms of Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles is every bit as important for understanding modern America as the oft-told histories of the Southern freedom struggle. This is one of those rare books that completely reorients our understanding of the past.”
–Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher, Jr. University Professor, Harvard University

“Thomas Sugrue's crisply written and massively sourced book delivers the northern half of the civil rights story with an authority that should make 'Sweet Land of Liberty' indispensable.”
–David Levering Lewis, author of a biography of the life and times of W.E.B. Du Bois

"With this landmark study, Thomas Sugrue has accomplished the extraordinary: he’s transformed the history of the civil rights movement, shifting it from the south to the north, from Montgomery, Birmingham, and Selma, to Harlem, Levittown, and the mean streets of Detroit. In the process, he’s stripped away the comforting sense shared by so many Americans that the struggle for racial justice is complete, the victory won. If ever a book deserved to be essential reading, this is it."
- Kevin Boyle, author of the National Book Award-winning Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age

"Thomas Sugrue's, Sweet Land of Liberty is one of the most important works on modern American history to appear in recent memory. It challenges and transforms what we think, not only about the struggle for civil rights, but more broadly about the entire course of American social and political development. It is one of those books that truly changes our historical perspective."
- Steve Hahn, author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning, A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration.

"Richly researched, elegantly written, and monumental in scope, Sweet Land of Liberty offers a riveting portrait of racial change in the most putatively free and equal part of the United States. In shifting attention to northern streets and confrontations, this painful yet stirring narrative eloquently enlarges the scope of American history, compellingly extends our understanding of social movements, and thoughtfully reminds us that deep and just change does not come easily."
- Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History, Columbia University.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 720 pages
• Publisher: Random House; 1 edition (November 4, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679643036
• ISBN-13: 978-0679643036
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.8 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #441,539 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas J. Sugrue is a twentieth-century American historian who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. He's the author or editor of four books and has published essays and reviews in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the London Review of Books, and the Nation. His newest book is Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden of Race. He's working on a history of real estate in modern America.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read to understand modern America, November 21, 2008

By 

Melissa L. (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (Hardcover)

Sweet Land of Liberty is one of the most eye-opening books I have ever read. The author is like a detective who has uncovered a whole world that we have completely forgotten. This book finally gives the northern history its due. I was especially interested in the author's mini-biographies of grassroots civil rights activists like Anna Arnold Hedgeman and Roxanne Jones. Most of them aren't household names, but they should be. Their stories are moving and powerful and bring the history to life. I couldn't put Sweet Land of Liberty down. This is a must-read book to understand the current state of race relations and civil rights in America.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A history of political reality, December 16, 2008

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (Hardcover)

Slavery was a Southern phenomenon, and the civil rights movement, in its most public aspect, focused on the South, a myopic viewpoint that ignored the very real battles that were being fought in the North. There is also a common myth that civil rights as a whole ceased to be a movement of any consequence after the 1960s. SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY addresses both misconceptions.

The author of this extensively researched history is Thomas J. Sugrue, whose first book, THE ORIGINS OF THE URBAN CRISIS, won the prestigious Bancroft Prize in History, the President's Book Award of the Social Science History Association, the Philip Taft Prize in Labor History, the Urban History Association Prize for Best Book in North American Labor History, and was selected as a Choice Outstanding Book. In 2005, Princeton University Press selected THE ORIGINS OF THE URBAN CRISIS as one of its 100 most influential books of the preceding century. Sugrue's academic career has been punctuated with activism, the combination making him well qualified to deal even-handedly with this subject matter. What he has written here is a history of political reality.

It is true that organization and activism came earlier to the North, where during the Great Depression and on through the aftermath of World War II, "devout churchwomen, lawyers, laborers, Democrats, Republicans, Socialists and Communists marched together on picket lines, lobbied public officials and joined in lawsuits against segregated housing and schools." The toil of Northern change agents fostered and informed the tactics used in the South, and the Southern initiatives and successes enheartened Northern activists. In the North, people of color were more likely to be able to attend public events and shop in the same stores with whites, but infamous unwritten "Jim Crow laws" prevented all blacks in the U.S. from, for example, being able to stay overnight while traveling in any but a few locations known through the elaborate cultural grapevine. Among these venues were the YMCAs in Northern cities where Christian principle had won out over racial bias, though not without the push of concerned citizens, including many strong, dedicated churchwomen of both races. These small victories were an inspiration to Southern blacks who either migrated North hoping for a brighter future or joined the battle at home in the 1960s.

But the right to watch a movie was hardly a satisfaction to masses of people living in poverty and losing out on the great dream of all Americans --- the right to an equal and excellent education. That right, it seemed, could not be made a reality despite all the legislation designed to guarantee it. The key to securing equality in public education lay in securing equality in housing. This was a drama that is still being played out in America. Gerrymandering had its nefarious role in underpinning de facto school segregation. Black neighborhoods could be written off the map, a racist tactic practiced on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. School busing was one of many strategies to circumvent the phenomena of gerrymandering, ghetto-ization and "white flight," all of which left African American families in the dust and their children in schools as inferior as those of the years of legal segregation.

The book sings the unsung, people like Roxanne Jones, a southern migrant to Philadelphia, who, abandoned by her alcoholic husband, was challenged by the issues facing African American women in the projects. "Public housing never lived up to its promise. Cheap construction caused all sorts of problems...the corridors were dimly lit and dangerous. The lawns surrounding the towers were muddy and trash strewn." Unmarried mothers were under constant surveillance by welfare workers and increasingly marginalized by lack of employment, unfair credit practices and lack of representation within the systems that regulated their economic existence. Jones organized others and spearheaded initiatives to raise welfare rates (in the early 1970s, "a family of four barely survived on the average annual payment of $3,600). As Sugrue puts it, "Jones did not see litigation and community organizing as antithetical" and had no hesitation to lead protests, once getting arrested for throwing a shoe through a window of the Pennsylvania state capitol.

As Sugrue is careful to point out, whites in general have had more resources of social capital to bring to bear than their black fellow citizens. Withdrawal from mixed or marginal neighborhoods, or gentrification of historic areas forcing poor inhabitants out, has become new factors affecting the quality of schools and the livability of cities and towns. True integration in America is still a rarity.

SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY comes to us at a telling time in our nation's history when many of the struggles highlighted in its pages are still being fought in subtle ways as we face the hopeful future. It will be read by thoughtful students of our racial history. Perhaps by remembering the past, we will not be condemned to repeat it.

--- Reviewed by Barbara Bamberger Scott

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A panoramic history, November 30, 2008

By 

ProfessionalParent (Big City USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (Hardcover)

Sweet Land of Liberty is a sweeping history of civil rights in the modern United States. This book challenges the conventional wisdom by moving past the well-told histories of the Jim Crow in South. Thomas Sugrue weaves together the life histories of important grassroots activists like Anna Hedgeman, Henry Lee Moon, Morris Milgram, Cecil Moore, and Roxanne Jones, national political figures, including Martin Luther King, Jr. and Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, and civil rights groups big and small. There are lots of surprises in these pages. Southern historians focus on the sit-ins of 1960, but Sugrue shows that segregated restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, and pools were commonplace in the North all the way through the 1940s and 1950s. The book's most powerful chapter focuses on 1963, the year when all of the currents of civil rights and black power exploded on the streets of Harlem, Chicago, Newark, and even New Rochelle and Englewood. Sweet Land of Liberty also sweeps away the old histories by finding common links between civil rights and black power activists and bringing the story right up to the end of the 20th century. If you want to understand how and why Barack Obama was elected and what in race relations we have overcome and what we have not, Sweet Land of Liberty is essential reading.