Customer Reviews

White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm not from Georgia and I'm not a history guy, but I found this book fascinating. The "editorial review" provided by Amazon does a fine job describing the book, so I'll just give a few of my impressions. The book is well written and easy to read (which don't always go hand in hand - see James, Henry). I found myself not only learning about Atlanta but also better understanding the phenomenon of white flight in general. This book has really opened my eyes to the issues of the city versus the suburbs; I can see now that many of the struggles of the '50s and '60s are still continuing today, if in slightly different forms.

Don't let the title of this book mislead you; this is not a 350-page rant about how evil conservatives are. In fact, I was surprised at how often the "good guys" in the integration struggle, such as Mayor Hartsfield and his coalition of business elites, were motivated not by a sense of social justice but by capitalism: many of the so-called city fathers were just as loathe to integrate as the segregationists, but the image of Atlanta as a fully integrated city was just too lucrative for their businesses and the city's economy. The book is blessedly free of sermonizing, as the author simply recounts what took place and shows how those events have influenced the world we live in, both political and physical. Value judgments are largely left to the reader.

One last thing. When I think of all the material covered in this book, from violent flashpoints to school board meetings to segregationist poetry to newspaper advertisements, I can't believe I wasn't bored out of my mind - this stuff usually isn't my cup of tea. But instead of bogging it down, the author used the excruciating level of detail to breath life into the story, animating the people and events in a way that made me feel connected to them. Regardless of your ideology, I think you will find yourself entertained and enlightened by this book.

This book is incredibly well researched, insightful, and an incredibly engaging read. I don't often read historical books but I did enjoy David McCullough's "Truman" and "John Adams" and found this book equally well written and often times more interesting. The author, Kevin Kruse doesn't just tell you about the politics of the time but draws you in to the people who made history. Like characters in a novel I found myself invested in them and looking forward to the next page. I have no connection to Atlanta, but that doesn't matter because this is an American story more than just an Atlanta story and is strikingly relevant today for anyone interested in how modern conservatism came to be. Particularly compelling was Kruse's telling of how rural and urban voters were manipulated, and the politics of racism were balanced with uneasy alliances between black and white community leaders. From the start the author reframes the discussion away from the traditional perspective of what people were "against" to think about what people were "for", and in doing so paints a picture of the values that fueled white flight, the civil rights movement, and continues to drive much of our modern political ideology. Whether you are interested in the history, modern politics, or just a great story I recommend this book

This book is first, well written and then well researched. As someone who grew up in Atlanta during a good part of the time period covered by the book I'm impressed by the amount of detail and the level of accuracy that the writer provides. His analysis of not only what happen in and around the south but how it ties into the rise of the new conservatism is spot on. This should be required reading for all high school seniors as well as most politicians. To learn from the past we need more writers and researchers like Kevin M. Kruse to help illuminate the way. Please, please, please buy this book and read it.

Like many people, I was familiar with the big highlights of the civil rights movement and the phenomenon of white flight, but to see the detail Kevin Kruse provides on the era in Atlanta is eye opening. You get the stories about sit-ins and the first African American to go to this or that school, but the smaller things like neighborhoods and public parks becoming "black" really gives the reader a good idea of the glacial pace that change was taking place. The "freedom of association" idea presented by the author captures the strategy of segregationists to maintain their exclusive use of public places by shifting from outright racism to a broad appeal for individual rights. The latter idea is what the author presents as the basis for the recent success of the Republican party not only in the South but suburban areas throughout the country.

I was drawn to this book because I recently had lived in one of the neighborhoods (Kirkwood) profiled by Kruse and, oddly, it was very difficult to get a history of the place. Long-time black residents would talk about their time in the neighborhood, but elliptically skipped over the racial transition. White gentrifiers focused on long past history as when the railroad was less of a barrier to nearby neighborhoods or the development of the Craftsmans and even older larger houses. What little I learned came from academic studies available on the internet, people whose families had left during the white flight of the 1960s and people who had departed the area before racial change had begun. This actually was typical for Atlanta--the city "too busy to hate" was too uncomfortable to discuss race, at least with someone from elsewhere. During my time in Atlanta, I came to recognize it as a place as racist as any classically segregated city like Cleveland (where I grew-up) or Chicago (where I had lived earlier in my career). Atlantans also seemed less matter of fact about race than people in contrast to Washington, DC--a city with much Southern heritage or Nashville, a less self-consciously moderate place. Particularly unlike northern cities, Atlanta also has a heritage of feudal social, economic, and political stratification within white and black communities that has remained even when the people changed.

Kruse provides cases studies from several Atlanta neighborhoods, to the West, East, and South of downtown and the processes of white resistance and racial change, as well as the larger political context in which this occurred. There were several surprises--one being the historical coalition between well-off "moderate" whites and the African-American community, both of which chafed under a Georgia political system that favored rural whites. This inversion of the usual Southern coalition (well-off and working class whites against blacks) retained the usual feudal character of a well-off group minimally serving the interests of one less advantaged group while playing their ally off another less advantaged group. In Atlanta, this represented an early version of the often touted "power sharing" relationship between business interests and the black political power structure that developed in the 1970s, after whites lost the mayor's office and had engaged in a brief flirtation with the working class whites they had once derided. Not surprisingly, the white moderates weren't particularly moderate on race, in private. OTOH, they generally lived apart from their less advantaged fellow Atlantans, regardless of race. Also not surprising was the presence of the Ku Klux Klan and other racial separatist organizations

I'd always been curious why Atlanta, as a headquarters for the civil rights movement, didn't have more activist history in its own backyard. Kruse indirectly answers the question. First, Rev. King and others were heavily invested in the image of Atlanta that also concerned wealthy whites because of its perceived ability to attract northern employers. Second, there was more activism than usually has been discussed, although much of it was instigated by students and others unresponsive to the cautious attitudes of the black Atlanta elite. In the end, Atlanta's integration efforts were mostly cosmetic and usually undermined by institutional resistance from whites of all backgrounds and, ultimately, white flight. Kruse briefly describes the development of Atlanta's suburbs as white flight havens and sources of conservative votes, even after drawing newcomers from elsewhere.


This is a well written book but I knocked a star off because the scholarship is weak in a number of areas. The history of Kirkwood emphasizes long tenure of local residents, yet the area (including neighborhoods to the North and West) was heavily settled by people who had relocated from South Georgia after WWII. Eastern Kirkwood had a substantial amount of post-WWII GI bill housing constructed as infill. Kruse also misses the heavy Klan presence, particularly in East Atlanta (a neighborhood treated as part of Kirkwood, but a bit to its south). Also missing is discussion of segregation era Black neighborhoods, amidst white areas and the roles they played in racial change. For example, the presence of these areas is given only passing notice in the discussion of Kirkwood, but they are never described in much depth. No mention is made of areas that remained white like Cabbagetown or places that kept at least a nominal amount of their white population such as Grant Park or the neighborhoods N of Kirkwood. Kruse's consideration of recent history is rather cursory and focuses more on the evolution of white flight areas like Gwinnett County into places of surprising racial and ethnic diversity, which has led to a new round of white flight. Oddly, there is no contemporary mention of the communities he profiled, which have changed in surprising ways. Kirkwood and the neighborhoods to its North & West have been transformed since the 1980s and have become the most liberal areas of the city (in contrast to the relatively conservative areas like Buckhead that once were characterized as moderate). The area of NW Atlanta described in the book also is gentrifying and represents perhaps the most recent wave of change. Ironically, despite its historic importance, the Sweet Auburn area has attracted none of the gentrification interest from African-Americans that has occurred in historic African American neighborhoods in some places like DC's LeDroit Park. The city, itself, is becoming whiter although it is again the white community that is split by politics (liberals in "intown" areas, conservatives in Buckhead). What is evident is that Atlanta's headlong rush into presenting itself as modern and forward looking has always been at odds with the reality. There remain few public spaces that draw together a wide cross section of the population and many of the assets that give character to a city such as cultural institutions and even some of the sports teams (like the Falcons) have not thrived and developed as much as in other cities with rapid late 20th century growth. Kruse's story is a useful one, but it would have been a better story with more understanding of the present and perhaps a smaller number of case examples, with more depth.

As a resident of Atlanta, I have always wondered how Atlanta can be so many things at the same time. How can Atlanta be considered, "The Black Mecca", a place of unparalleled opportunities for educated and upwardly mobile African-Americans, while at the same time, Atlanta has the second highest poverty rate for Black Americans. The existence of these two phenomena were a real enigma to me. Furthermore, how can the myriad of opportunities that exist in Atlanta for educated African-Americans persist when the politics you so frequently hear articulated from the Newt Gingrich's, Bob Barr's, and the Georgia governors seems to resemble the racial views of this country several decades ago.

White Flight answers all of these questions. I am reading the book for the fourth time; it is that good. Kevin Kruse, a Princeton professor is impeccable and meticulous in his scholarship, but he knows how to package his material in a way that non academics can comprehend.

This book is particularly adroit at explaining the history of the coalition between the Atlanta business elite, the Atlanta's mayors and the black business and civil rights community. The book describes how this relationship changed over time and how whites reacted to increased black power by fleeing the city. The book allows you to understand how whites felt their rights were being taken away, but it does this in accurate historical terms; it doesn't paint whites as sympathetic victims who had been discriminated against and therefore warranted the sympathy of the reader.

The book cogently shows how the prevailing wisdom that Civil Rights and integration destroyed the segregated south is a myth. The book explains how the flight to the suburbs allowed the preservation of a segregated state but the language that was used to describe this movement was non-racial, non-offensive and perfectly understandable to the average American. The book shows how whites learned to hone their language to adjust to the society's notion of what was acceptable. This new language was so subtle that often those who used it were not even aware themselves of the racial underpinnings behind the language.

If you only read one book on Atlanta's history, read this book. Kruse is a true historian who has done his homework and he dissects Atlanta better than any other author I have read who has written about this very special and prominent city.

It may have started as a one issue thing, segregationists v. non-segregationists, but after the Civil Rights movement had won the day, and things had changed 360 degrees to end up with a population as segregated as the generation before had been -but with both races calmer than they started off, only then do we see that both were fighting the wrong dude.

It's like your close neighbor, whom you can't get along with, had suddenly joined forces with a strong new boy in town to back him up, then you realize that the strong guy is indeed more worth considering and watching out for than your neighbor himself. What do you do? You give up the fight with the weaker fellow, make peace with him, and turn to the strong fellow with all your might. The strong fellow -big and nosey government- is now your deadly enemy, the one that -because you were so stupidly busy- you didn't notice coming. Your old neighbor, instead, can even be won to your side if only you are able to persuade him that both your interests are better served by joining forces against the bullying newcomer. And this, unfortunately, is not the way the author presents his study, which otherwise is detailed, clear, and comprehensive. The author, in any case, does not identify at all with white flight people, seeing them as a foreigner sees a country he is new to, and thus does not accept without apparent indignation the fact that whites might live where and however they feel like, as can be expected from a free people making free choices (politically correct or not). Only free people make wrong choices. Panhandlers and boot-lickers will never make a right one, but they are very good at pointing to others' wrong ones.

Mr. Kruse sees Southern conservatism evolve, but not quite enough to redeem itself from its seed of segregationism, "In a single sentence, without ever mentioning race, Newt Gingrich had managed to tie together suburban concerns over public transportation, public housing, and public education just as whites around Atlanta had been doing for four decades." (in his Contract with America). While the statement is true, still the implication is unfair. While Mr. Gingrich talks about his "here and now", Mr. Kruse still holds on to the "then and there" old grudge. Kruse intelligently describes the changes in Southern political perceptions, from racial to anti-government, he is not gallant enough though to give up past grievances. I sure adore the South and what it stands for today, and I am sure those great ideals were always present in the Southern mind, only racism tinged whatever good it has ever done in the eyes of unforgiving fellow Americans.

Proof that black and white middle classes can benefit in greater measure by working together againt all mighty government is what happened during Andrew Young's mayorship of Atlanta from 1982 to 1990: "He eased the burden on property taxes, and cut the red tape for new construction projects ... Andrew Young, the civil rights activist once considered so radical by the white elite, 'turned out to be the best friend a business community ever had.' ... 'My job' he told a reporter in 1985, 'is to see that whites get some of the power and blacks get some of the money.'"

But with big government in our homes nobody but the boot-licking bureaucrats and the Washington D.C. aristocracy, the scientifically and politically correct insiders to America's liberal regime, will ever see either: No power and no money for the middle-classes. I recommend reading, also, 'The Character of Nations', by Angelo M. Codevilla, a book that provides the answers to questions Mr. Kruse is not even asking.

As a final ironical note, what about the book's last sentence: "White Americans must stop running away from their past."? But isn't that what progress is meant to be? There's the preaching vocation clouding the liberal scholar's power of judgement once again.

Socialism uses coercion to change human nature. Evil only multiplies evil.

Got here on time, haven't read it yet, but I have to say I was very pleased with Amazon's service.

While this book is a good history of some of the trends in the city of Atlanta and the surrounding suburbs, I think that the author ultimately fails at supporting what seems to be his thesis. Apparently, his argument is that white discomfort with growing black influence, naturally occurring out of the civil rights movement and the equal application of the Constitution, has led to the "rights" movement of the contemporary conservative and libertarian strain. The teabagger movement, which spawned after the publishing of this book, would seem to support this thesis.

Even so, no causal link is shown. The stories are simply anecdotal. White people who fled the city found comfort in conservative and libertarian ideology. Some of them even went so far as to firebomb the houses of new black residents in "white" neighborhoods and of whites looking to leave, willing to sell to blacks. So what? Kruse seems to be suggesting that because these ideologies are where racists found refuge, these ideologies are now themselves tainted with this racism. I do not think that is the case. If one wants to attack libertarianism, or even contemporary conservatism (as hard as it may be to define that term), then one should do better than simply pulling the race card and supporting it on a foundation of pretended scholarship.

This book presents the old conspiratorial arguments of the left about their opponents. The basic argument here is that the entire basis of republican and conservative politics is racism. Its a simple-minded argument dressed up as "research" when in fact it is anything but.

The starting premise is that the life ideal of any good person is high density housing downtown in a city. Such is the greatness of that life that there could not possibly be a "good" motive for people not to want to live in high-density housing in the core of a city. And with the lack of good motives, the obvious conclusion is that anyone who didn't want to live in downtown atlanta was motivated by racism. For good measure, the book dresses up its simple-minded thinking with the history of segregationist thought with the goal of saying that the one is equal to the other.

The book is also overty regionally biased against the south. All the same trends the author observes in "segregationist" "republican" Georgia could be found in "liberal" "democratic" places like New York and Boston. The author for all his "insight" into the minds of conservatives never quite gets around to explaining why those places are not segregationist or dominated by conservative ideas. The author also seems to misunderstand the nature of southern democratic ideology. Before "white flight" and before "the suburbs", the democratic parties in the south were not markedly different in idealogy than the republicans of today. The author doesn't seem to catch the fact that the democratic party left those people rather than those people leaving the democratic party.

The "research" involved in this book is incredibly bad. Reducing the entirty of conservative ideology to racism will certainly be well accepted by many on the left but its not an argument that has appeal beyond that audience.

The funny thing is that wnile many people (like the author) are willing to point accusatory fingers at "the suburbs" as segregationist enclaves, they are far from willing to look at the same seregationism that secures their academic "bubble" worlds. Nobody at Colombia wants to talk about it being a fortress within the community that surrounds it. Nobody asks why the general public is banned from entering the library at the University of Chicago. And nobody ever asks about campus security or what they really do. Academics simply don't want to know. What they want to do is point the accusatory finger at someone else (Atlanta) far away.

The other more relivant thing the author may have taken a look at is the flight into the cities by rich white liberals who have resegregated and transformed entire neighborhoods. Its called gentrification and for any complete study of the subject of the book, it needs to be considered as do new seregationist institutions like magnet schools where rich whites are given a private school education at public expense in exchange for attending school with a picked nonwhite elite kept at a "safe" percentage of total enrollment while the rest of the city's population is given a distinctly seperate and unequal education. But nobody is going to write about that. Better to simply write screeds saying republicans are all racists.

America and American political writing need to move past the stupid accusatory politics of this book.

Postscript:

The feedback for this review is rather obviously being faked. As of October, this review has received as much feedback as a spotlight review written in 2005 has and has received more feedback than a spotlight review written in March 2007 all over a couple months.