The decade following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision saw white southerners mobilize in massive resistance to racial integration. Most segregationists conceded that ultimately they could only postpone the demise of Jim Crow. Some militant whites, however, believed it possible to win the civil rights struggle. Histories of the black freedom struggle, when they mention these racist zealots at all, confine them to the margin of the story. These extremist whites are caricatured as ineffectual members of the lunatic fringe. Civil rights activists, however, saw them for what they really were: calculating, dangerous opponents prepared to use terrorism in their stand against reform. To dismiss white militants is to underestimate the challenge they posed to the movement and, in turn, the magnitude of civil rights activists' accomplishments. The extremists helped turn massive resistance into a powerful political phenomenon. While white southern elites struggled to mobilize mass opposition to racial reform, the militants led entire communities in revolt. Rabble Rousers turns traditional top-down models of massive resistance on their head by telling the story of five far-right activists--Bryant Bowles, John Kasper, Rear Admiral John Crommelin, Major General Edwin Walker, and J. B. Stoner--who led grassroots rebellions. It casts new light on such contentious issues as the role of white churches in defending segregation, the influence of anti-Semitism in southern racial politics, and the divisive impact of class on white unity. The flame of the far right burned brilliantly but briefly. In the final analysis, violent extremism weakened the cause of white southerners. Tactical and ideological tensions among massive resisters, as well as the strength and unity of civil rights activists, accelerated the destruction of Jim Crow.

Biographies of twenty American women whose actions led to an expansion of freedom for everyone.

This 1989 second volume of Professor Williams' translation of al-Tabarī's account of the early 'Abbāsī empire focuses on the reigns of the son - al-Mahdī - and grandsons - al-Hadi and Hārūn al-Rashīd - of Caliph al-Mansūr, the subject of the first volume. This was the 'Golden Prime' of the empire, before the civil war between the sons of al-Rashīd and the movement of the capital away from Baghdad. Also considered is the story of the Persian aristocratic family, the Barmakis, who became the real rulers under the indolent al-Rashīd, until he destroyed them in a rage which astonished his contemporaries. The events are narrated through the reminiscences of eyewitnesses, woven together by the great historiographer al-Tabarī (d. 923). The translator of the volume is an Islamicist who has lived many years in the Arab world and has a rare knowledge of its culture and literature.

An Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People Using journal entries, letters home, and song lyrics, the women of the West speak for themselves in these tales of courage, enduring spirit, and adventure. Women such as Amelia Stewart Knight traveling on the Oregon Trail, homesteader Miriam Colt, entrepreneur Clara Brown, army wife Frances Grummond, actress Adah Isaacs Menken, naturalist Martha Maxwell, missionary Narcissa Whitman, and political activist Mary Lease are introduced to readers through their harrowing stories of journeying across the plains and mountains to unknown land. Recounting the impact pioneers had on those who were already living in the region as well as how they adapted to their new lives and the rugged, often dangerous landscape, this exploration also offers resources for further study and reveals how these influential women tamed the Wild West.

Rabble-Rouser for Peace is the first book to tell the full story of how a boy from South Africa's poverty-stricken black townships became one of the world's best-known religious figures, a moral icon to those who work for peace and justice everywhere. Drawn from 30 years of the author's first-hand contact with Desmond Tutu, this is not only a vivid character study of a public figure with a unique capacity to communicate warmth, humour and compassion; it is also a rich account of his dynamic place in history. The story of Desmond Tutu's life tells a crucial part of South Africa's history and its movement from Apartheid towards peace, but it also follows the growth of one of the best loved and globally most recognised men of our time.

Rabble Rousers and Merry Pranksters captures some of the imagination, the audacity, the laughs and the wildness that animated many of the social movements of the sixties and seventies in Aotearoa/New Zealand. During this time, particularly from the late sixties to the early seventies, an astonishingly broad-based revolt occurred throughout the country. Thousands of workers, Maori, Pacific people, women, youth, lesbians, gays, students, environmentalists and others rebelled against authority. Innovative new styles and anarchistic methods of political dissent became popular. A colourful and energetic bunch of anarchists occasionally played significant roles in these struggles. Anarchists were prominent in the anti-nuclear, anti-Vietnam War, anti-US military bases, commune, unemployed and peace movements. Rabble Rousers and Merry Pranksters is a richly-detailed tale about a much neglected anti-authoritarian leftist current in Aotearoa/New Zealand history."

Privatization has been on the right-wing agenda for years. Health care, schools, Social Security, public lands, the military, prisons-all are considered fair game. Through stories, analysis, impassioned argument-even song lyrics-Si Kahn and Elizabeth Minnich show that corporations are, by their very nature, unable to fulfill effectively what have traditionally been the responsibilities of government. They make a powerful case that the market is not the measure of all things, and that a vital public sector is an indispensable component of a healthy democracy.