Whereas other studies have focused on George Wallace s career as a national figure, Stand Up for Alabama provides a detailed, comprehensive, and analytical study of Wallace s political life that emphasizes his activities and their impact within the state of Alabama.Jeff Frederick answers two fundamental questions: What was George Wallace s impact on the state of Alabama? Why did Alabamians continue to embrace him over a twenty-five year period? Using a variety of sources to document the state s performance in areas including mental health, education, conservation, prisons, and...

Alabama is a state full of contrasts. On the one hand, it has elected the lowest number of women to the state legislature of any state in the union; yet according to historians it produced two of the ten most important American women of the 20th century--Helen Keller and Rosa Parks. Its people are fanatically devoted to conservative religious values; yet they openly idolize tarnished football programs as the source of their heroes. Citizens who are puzzled by Alabama's maddening resistance to change or its incredibly strong sense of tradition and community will find important clues and new...

Social and political history of the modern South. This collection of essays on the social and political history of the modern South consider the region's poor, racial mores and race relations, economic opportunity, Protestant activism, political coalitions and interest groups, social justice, and progressive reform.History and Hope in the Heart of Dixie illuminates the dual role of historian and public advocate in modern America. In a time when the nation's eyes have been focused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita onto the vulnerability and dire condition of poor people in the...

In the Shadow of Hitler chronicles the experiences of Alabama Jews as they worked to overcome their own divisions in order to aid European Jews before, during, and after the Second World War.
In this extensive study of how southern Jews in the United States responded to the Nazi persecution of European Jews, Dan J. Puckett recounts the divisions between Alabama Jews in the early 1930s. As awareness of the horrors of the Holocaust spread, Jews across Alabama from different backgrounds and from Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox traditions worked to bridge their internal divisions...

This Bright Light of Ours offers a tightly focused insider s view of the community-based activism that was the heart of the civil rights movement. A celebration of grassroots heroes, this book details through first-person accounts the contributions of ordinary people who formed the nonviolent army that won the fight for voting rights.
Combining memoir and oral history, Maria Gitin fills a vital gap in civil rights history by focusing on the neglected Freedom Summer of 1965 when hundreds of college students joined forces with local black leaders to register thousands of new black...

2016 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

Audacious in its scope, subtle in its analysis, and persuasive in its arguments, The Great Melding is the second book in Glenn Feldman's magisterial recounting of the South's transformation from a Reconstruction-era citadel of Democratic Party inertia to a cauldron of GOP agitation. In this pioneering study, Feldman shows how the transitional years after World War II, the Dixiecrat episode, and the early 1950s formed a pivotal sequence of events that altered America's political landscape in profound, fundamental, and unexpected...

Florida governor Reubin Askew memorably characterized a leader as someone who cares enough to tell the people not merely what they want to hear, but what they need to know. It was a surprising statement for a contemporary politician to make, and, more surprising still, it worked. In The Politics of Trust: Reubin Askew and Florida in the 1970s, Gordon E. Harvey traces the life and career of the man whose public service many still recall as the Golden Age of Florida politics.
Askew rose to power on a wave of New South leadership that hoped to advance the Democratic Party beyond the...

In the Shadow of Hitler chronicles the experiences of Alabama Jews as they worked to overcome their own divisions in order to aid European Jews before, during, and after the Second World War.
In this extensive study of how southern Jews in the United States responded to the Nazi persecution of European Jews, Dan J. Puckett recounts the divisions between Alabama Jews in the early 1930s. As awareness of the horrors of the Holocaust spread, Jews across Alabama from different backgrounds and from Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox traditions worked to bridge their internal divisions in...

In sharp contrast to the "melting pot" reputation of the United States, the American South--with its history of slavery, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement--has been perceived in stark and simplistic demographic terms. In Far East, Down South, editors Raymond A. Mohl, John E. Van Sant, and Chizuru Saeki provide a collection of essential essays that restores and explores an overlooked part of the South's story--that of Asian immigration to the region.
These essays form a comprehensive overview of key episodes and issues in the history of Asian immigrants to the South. During...

Examines the role of press coverage in promoting the mission of the TVA, facilitating family relocation, and formulating the historical legacy of the New Deal. This book describes Tennessee's preexisting conditions, analyses the effects of relocation, and argues that local newspapers had a significant impact in promoting the TVA's agenda.