Race & Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915-1972

Hailed as one of the best treatments of the civil rights movement, Race and Democracy is the most comprehensive and detailed study yet of the movement at the state level. Adam Fairclough marshals a wealth of research to recount more than five decades of struggle for justice and equality in the South's most politically intriguing, ethnically diverse, and racially complex state.

This sweeping and dramatic narrative ranges in time from the founding of the New Orleans branch of the NAACP in 1915 to the beginning of Edwin Edwards's first term as governor in 1972. Fairclough takes readers to the grass roots of the movement as it was defiantly advanced and resisted in scores of places like the New Orleans shipyards, the voter registrar's office in Opelousas, and the Little Union Baptist Church in Shreveport.

Race and Democracy, winner of the Lillian Smith Award, A Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award, the Gustavus Myers Award, and the Louisiana Literary Award, is a dynamic, landmark work on the civil rights movement. It impressively demonstrates that by studying the contours of grassroots activism, we can gain a much clearer picture of the struggle for racial justice.