The civil rights movement was arguably the most successful social movement in American history. In a provocative new assessment of its success, David Chappell argues that the story of civil rights is not a story of the ultimate triumph of liberal ideas after decades of gradual progress. Rather, it is a story of the power of religious tradition.
Chappell reconsiders the intellectual roots of civil rights reform, showing how northern liberals' faith in the power of human reason to overcome prejudice was at odds with the movement's goal of immediate change. Even when liberals sincerely...

In Waking from the Dream David L. Chappell--whose book A Stone of Hope the Atlantic Monthly called "one of the three or four most important books on the civil rights movement"-- provides a sweeping history of the fight to keep the civil rights movement alive following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. Chappell reveals that, far from coming to an abrupt end with King's death, the civil rights movement continued to work to realize King's vision of an equal society. Entering a new phase where historic victories were no longer within reach, the movement's veterans...