Toward Freedom Land: The Long Struggle for Racial Equality in America

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University Press of Kentucky, Jun 18, 2010 - Biography & Autobiography - 232 pages

The ongoing struggle for civil rights and social justice lies at the heart of America’s evolving identity. The pursuit of equal rights is often met with social and political trepidation, forcing citizens and leaders to grapple with controversial issues of race, class, and gender. Renowned scholar Harvard Sitkoff has devoted his life to the study of the civil rights movement, becoming a key figure in global human rights discussions and an authority on American liberalism.


Toward Freedom Land assembles Sitkoff ’s writings on twentieth-century race relations, representing some of the finest race-related historical research on record. Spanning thirty-five years of Sitkoff ’s distingushed career, the collection features an in-depth examination of the Great Depression and its effects on African Americans, the intriguing story of the labor movement and its relationship to African American workers, and a discussion of the effects of World War II on the civil rights movement. His precise analysis illuminates multifaceted racial issues including the New Deal’s impact on race relations, the Detroit Riot of 1943, and connections between African Americans, Jews, and the Holocaust.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
The Preconditions for Racial Change
11
The New Deal and Race Relations
21
The Detroit Race Riot of 1943
43
Racial Militancy and Interracial Violence in the Second World War
65
African American Militancy in the World War II South
93
Willkie as Liberal
129
African Americans American Jews and the Holocaust
147
Harry Truman and the Election of 1948
175
Martin Luther King Jr
197
The Second Reconstruction
215
Index
225
Back Cover
233
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About the author (2010)

Harvard Sitkoff, professor emeritus of history at the University of New Hampshire, is the author of King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop. He lives in Durham, New Hampshire.

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