Waking from the dream: the struggle for civil rights in the shadow of Martin Luther King, Jr

Description

The author of A Stone of Hope, called "one of the three or four most important books on the civil rights movement" by The Atlantic Monthly, turns his attention to the years after Martin Luther King's assassination--and provides a sweeping history of the struggle to keep the civil rights movement alive and to realize King's vision of an equal society. In this arresting and groundbreaking account, David L. Chappell reveals that, far from coming to an abrupt end with King's murder, the civil rights movement entered a new phase. It both grew and splintered. These were years when decisive, historic victories were no longer within reach--the movement's achievements were instead hard-won, and their meanings unsettled. From the fight to pass the Fair Housing Act in 1968, to debates over unity and leadership at the National Black Political Conventions, to the campaign for full-employment legislation, to the surprising enactment of the Martin Luther King holiday,...