Virginia was a battleground state in the struggle to implement Brown v. Board of Education; with one of the South’s largest and strongest NAACP units fighting against a program of noncompliance crafted by the state’s political leaders. Keep On Keeping On offers a detailed examination of how African Americans and the NAACP in Virginia successfully pursued a legal agenda that provided new educational opportunities for the state’s black population in the face of fierce opposition from segregationists and the Democratic Party of Harry F. Byrd Sr. Keep On Keeping On is the first book to offer a comprehensive view of African Americans’ efforts to obtain racial equality in Virginia in the later twentieth century. Brian J. Daugherity considers the relationship between the various levels of the NAACP; the ideas and actions of other African American organizations; and the stances of Virginia’s political leaders; white liberals and moderates; and segregationists. In doing so; the author provides a better understanding of the connections between the actions of white political leaders and those of black civil rights activists working to bring about school desegregation. Blending social; legal; southern; and African American history; this book sheds new light on the civil rights movement and white resistance to civil rights in Virginia and the South.
#1034230 in Books University of Virginia Press 1999-10-29Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.50 x 6.50 x .75l; 1.22 #File Name: 0813918944212 pages
Review
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful. Superlative historyBy Dennis BrandtThis companion work to Neely's The Fate of Liberty continues the investigation of the incarceration of prisoners; this time in the South. Gleaned from very obscure records by a man with the patience of Job in finding them; Southern Rights provides a unique glimpse into the South and how it treated civil liberties during the war. We have heard so much about Lincoln's dealings in this area but little about Jefferson Davis's. You will be surprised. I find Neely's writing engaging; although you should have an interest in the topic first. Casual reading for the uninitiated it is not. But it does avoid the turgid rhetoric that is far too common in academic works. Highly recommended and different.1 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Perfect Present of History Buff!By Fancy NGift for my son-in-law. He is a high school history teacher who loves this period. He was very thrilled with it.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Jefferson Davis; The Failed JeffersonianBy Jason GalbraithIn the 1990s; historian Mark Neely spent six years tracking down 4;108 records of Confederate political prisoners. The result was this nine-chapter (therefore somewhat slender) book. The nine chapters are scattered across four parts: "Liberty and Order;" "The Confederate Bench and Bar;" "Dissent" and "Jefferson Davis and History." The book's principal weakness is that the chapters were clearly separately written papers rather than parts of a coherent whole; for which I deduct one star.Whole chapters are devoted to the special cases of Arkansas and East Tennessee; with another chapter lumping together western Virginia and North Carolina. I especially appreciated the chapter on East Tennessee as the only one of my ancestors whom I can prove served in the Civil War; James H. Galbraith; was from there. He joined a Union mounted infantry unit at the very end of the war. I have long been curious what he did between the start of the war and then. If Neely is to be believed; he either fled North at the outset or (more likely; given that he did not sign up immediately) was held as a prisoner by the Confederates for his Unionism until all of Tennessee was overrun. Most of those in their twenties and thirties who did flee north joined the Union Army almost immediately; Neely argues that in this region; non-participation in the war was not a viable option.Chapter 8 deals among other things with historic peace churches in the Confederacy and their efforts to avoid conscription of their adherents. Such movements were typically also antislavery and thus suspect to Confederate authorities. Chapter 8 also provides most of the more colorful incidents described in the book; such as a runaway slave being hanged by Union troops (!) for providing false information and British permanent residents realizing their choices (and especially their ability to avoid conscription) were very limited after British consuls were expelled (!!) from Southern cities in late 1863.Chapter 9 personalizes the war by showing what Jefferson Davis did about civil liberties and is therefore the most readable chapter. It makes the very important point that success or failure in the war hinged on control of the Border South which; after Fort Sumter and the call for volunteers; was evenly divided between the Confederacy and the Union. Even more important; however; is the simple fact that Jefferson Davis was constrained by circumstances just as Lincoln was. The following long quote closes out the chapter:"Historians could not help but notice the differences in Confederate and Union ideologies and policies -- the Union restricting liberty from the earliest moment to the very end of the war; while the Confederacy made a great point of its maintenance of civilian rights in the midst of war almost to the very end. Dwelling more on what the presidents said than what they did; historians assumed that Confederates valued white civil liberties more than Northerners did and that Confederate leaders had more reverence for the constitution. Such a conclusion ignores behavior and the realities of power. Actually; Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln acted alike as commanders in chief when it came to the rights of the civilian populace. Both showed little sincere interest in constitutional restrictions on government authority in wartime. Both were obsessed with winning the war. Both ultimately obeyed their great national mandates to hold on to the territory they had."This false assumption about more reverence being placed on white civil liberties by the Confederacy is an all-too-common mistake in studying the Civil War and made this book necessary. I will concede that the Confederacy was the last attempt to erect an actual government on Jeffersonian principles but the exigencies of war permitted very little difference between Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians in relationships with actual citizens; especially those who were not entirely behind their respective sides. Four stars.
