Examining the growth of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) following the birth of the civil rights movement, this book is filled with tales of the heroic efforts to halt their rise to power. Shortly after the success of the Montgomery bus boycott, the KKK—determined to keep segregation as the way of life in Alabama—staged a resurgence, and the strong-armed leadership of Governor George C. Wallace, who defied the new civil rights laws, empowered the Klan’s most violent members. Although Wallace’s power grew, not everyone accepted his unjust policies, and blacks such as Martin Luther King Jr., J. L. Chestnut, and Bernard LaFayette began fighting back in the courthouses and schoolhouses, as did young southern lawyers such as Charles “Chuck” Morgan, who became the ACLU’s southern director; Morris Dees, who cofounded the Southern Poverty Law Center; and Bill Baxley, Alabama attorney general, who successfully prosecuted the bomber of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church and legally halted some of Governor Wallace’s agencies designed to slow down integration. Dozens of exciting, extremely well-told stories demonstrate how blacks defied violence and whites defied public ostracism and indifference in the face of kidnappings, bombings, and murders.

Much controversy exists concerning Major General Benjamin F. ButlerOCOs administration in New Orleans during the second year of the Civil War. Some historians have extolled the general as a great humanitarian, while others have vilified him as a brazen opportunist, agreeing with the wealthy of occupied New Orleans who labeled him OC BeastOCO Butler. In this thorough examination of ButlerOCOs career in the Crescent City, Chester G. Hearn reveals that both assessments are right.As a criminal lawyer prior to entering politics, Butler learned two great lessonsOCohow to beat the rich and powerful at their own game, and how to succeed as a felon without being caught. In New Orleans, Butler drew on these lessons, visibly enjoying power, removing those who questioned his authority, and delighting in defeating his opponents. Because of his remoteness from Washington, he was able to make up his own rules as he went along, surrounding himself with trusted friends and family members who had no choice but to keep his secrets lest they incriminate themselves.Butler made every effort to humble the rich, who abhorred him and whose sordid characterizations of his regimeOCosome true, some notOCobecame legendary. As Hearn explains, ButlerOCOs legacy of corruption clouded many admirable aspects of his administration. He championed the poor, many of whom would have starved had he not fed and employed them. He also established sanitation policies that helped rid the city of disease and saved the lives of thousands of New OrleansOCO less-fortunate.Vividly describing ButlerOCOs childhood and his political career before and after the war, Hearn deftly places ButlerOCOs New Orleans reign in the context of his life. He also offers new information on Butler, including the first investigation of his suspicious accumulation of great wealth late in life.In a fast-paced, colorful narrative, Hearn shows Butler to be a fascinating case study of contradictions, a remarkable man with a politicianOCOs appetite for wealth and power as well as a sincere empathy for the poor. All Civil War historians and buffs will savor this riveting, insightful portrait of the man behind OC the Beast.OCO"

Based on real events, The Devil Himself is a high-energy novel of military espionage and Mafia justice. "I'll talk to anybody, a priest, a bank manager, a gangster, the devil himself, if I can get the information I need. This is a war." -- Lt. Commander Charles Radcliffe Haffenden, Naval Intelligence Unit, B-3 In late 1982, a spike in terrorism has the Reagan Administration considering covert action to neutralize the menace before it reaches the United States. There are big risks to waging a secret war against America's enemies---but there is one little-known precedent. Forty years earlier, German U-boats had been prowling the Atlantic, sinking hundreds of U.S. ships along the east coast, including the largest cruise ship in the world, Normandie, destroyed at a Manhattan pier after Pearl Harbor. Nazi agents even landed on Long Island with explosives and maps of railways, bridges, and defense plants. Desperate to secure the coast, the Navy turned to Meyer Lansky, the Jewish Mob boss. A newly naturalized American whose fellow Eastern European Jews were being annihilated by Hitler, Lansky headed an unlikely fellowship of mobsters Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegel, Frank Costello, and naval intelligence officers. Young Reagan White House aide Jonah Eastman, grandson of Atlantic City gangster Mickey Price, is approached by the president's top advisor with an assignment: Discreetly interview his grandfather's old friend Lansky about his wartime activities. There just might be something to learn from that secret operation. The notoriously tight-lipped gangster, dying of cancer, is finally ready to talk. Jonah gets a riveting---and darkly comic---history lesson. The Mob caught Nazi agents, planted propaganda with the help of columnist Walter Winchell, and found Mafia spies to plot the invasion of Sicily, where General Patton was poised to strike at the soft underbelly of the Axis. Lansky's men stopped at nothing to sabotage Hitler's push toward American shores.

Investigating the origins of a cryptic classified ad, crime-beat journalist Dixie Flynn finds herself entering the seedy realm of a brutal Russian mobster. Before she knows it, Dixie’s simple missing-father story has turned into a violent battle of wills as she tries to help a woman escape a life and death struggle with the mob. For Dixie, the pen is mightier than the sword, but it’s going to take some handy work with a pistol if she wants this story to have a happy ending.

A revisionist history of the radical transformation of the American South during the Civil War examines the economic, social and political deconstruction and rebuilding of Southern institutions as experienced by everyday people. By the award-winning author of Confederate Emancipation.

A biography of Fred "Dixie" Walker, a gifted ballplayer who played in the majors for 18 seasons and in 1,905 games, assembling a career batting average of .306 while playing for the Yankees, White Sox, Tigers, Dodgers, and Pirates.

Two generations after he challenged Republicans to envision a Southern-based national majority, Phillips issues a bold challenge to Democrats to transform American politics by building a winning coalition outside the South.