The Making of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement

Traditional civil rights movement history, focusing on well-known leaders such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, notable movements such as the NAACP, CORE, SCLC, and SNCC, and on communities located primarily in the deep south, has been only partially successful in identifying the origins of the civil rights movement. The Making of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement constitutes a challenge to many of the agendas established by civil rights scholarship of the past twenty-five years and offers new insights into the origins, development, representations, and international ramifications of the movement. Collectively, the essays in this volume suggest new ways of thinking about the civil rights movement and its repercussions. The core essays of the volume, written by distinguished scholars such as Clayborne Carson, highlight the importance of black activism in the 1930s and 1940s, not only as practiced by ministers, but also by the NAACP, black professionals, and labor organizers. Innovative chapters comparing experiences in Britain and South Africa reveal the ways in which movement leaders exploited national ideals and familiar language to secure sympathetic responses both at home and abroad, and show how a commitment to nonviolence gave the movement its distinctive cast. The volume effectively challenges accepted notions of "race" and "racial equality" and considers the long-term effects of the struggle on its participants. Tracing the development of African American political though since the 1960s, The Making of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement offers a new look at the contemporary legacy of the civil rights movement.