Update and Pupdate
As I noted in the last one of these, I’ll be using CAMPAIGN TRAILS to share some of the research from my current book project on the civil rights era.
The first installment came yesterday with the interview I did with civil rights legend Dave Dennis. (Apologies for the problem with the original link — it’s been replaced with the embedded full video.)
The Work in Progress posts are only for paid subscribers, but I wanted to share a clip of the interview with everyone.
This part came at the very end of our conversation, when Dave was discussing the voter registration drives in Mississippi. He then paused and told me a story about an elderly African American couple who came to Canton to get registered for the first time in their lives. (The audio is wonky are first, but steadies itself in ten seconds.)
Again, the full interview is up on yesterday’s post now, so paid subscribers can watch when they get a chance. I highly recommend it.
And while I’m talking about Dave Dennis, let me recommend the PBS Freedom Summer documentary that’s going to be taken down from their site August 2nd. Watch it now if you haven’t. This clip of Dave giving the eulogy for Jim Chaney is gutting.
On a lighter side, the promised pupdate. Here’s Sarge snoozing with his paws on his nose.
As always, ask me anything in the comments!
Have you read Robert Mickey’s Paths out of Dixie? He’s a political scientist at Michigan, but recent Southern history is the book’s subject. It contends that Georgia, Mississippi and South Carolina were full-fledged “authoritarian enclaves” circa 1940 or so and surveys and compares the different ways in which each democratized from then through the 1970s. Its core argument is that each state’s experience was much more contingent on leaders’ choices and factional conflicts inside the ruling state Democratic parties than other often cited factors like economic development. For instance, he argued that the regular Mississippi Democratic Party’s complete estrangement from the national party until the mid-1970s delayed the Republican takeover of state politics, whereas the relatively early reconciliation between the South Carolina party and the national Democrats helped lead to a very different outcome for GOP fortunes there.
Anyway, it gave me a lot to think about, and I was curious about your reaction to it. Thanks, as always, for doing these!
Hi. Do you have any recommendations for reading materials on Citizen Committees? I read Go Set a Watchman with a book club and hadn't heard much about them before (HS in Florida).