LIFTING THE CHAINS

A chronicle of the long struggle for Black civil rights in the century before the Voting Rights Act was enacted.

Distinguished historian Chafe is self-aware enough to recognize that “the struggle for freedom has been carried out primarily by Black Americans, with only occasional assistance from whites.” Whites have been allies and supporters, to be sure, but it was institutions and people within the Black community who carried most of the burden—and indeed, who evolved those institutions as instruments of struggle, whether the Black church or even street gangs. In many cases, Chafe continues in his lucid narrative, whites have become allies largely for political expediency. For example, a reluctant John F. Kennedy heeded the Civil Rights Movement because he needed Black votes, while Franklin Roosevelt enforced fair-hiring laws “only because he could not afford to face 50,000-100,000 Black protestors on the streets of Washington as he tried to mobilize support for American intervention in World War II.” Even Harry Truman, who talked a good game about civil rights, “impressed supporters…with his endorsement of FEPC [i.e., fair employment] legislation, but he did nothing to persuade recalcitrant Southern senators to vote for the bill.” Far more common than white alliance was white resistance to any advances in civil rights. As Chafe notes, when World War I ended and Black veterans returned home with the thought that they may have earned equal treatment for their service, they met a wave of lynchings committed and abetted by whites who saw their military service “as a threat to the racial status quo.” Given on-paper advances since the 1960s, Chafe concludes, one might be tempted to think that civil rights is a done deal. However—and here is an opening for true, steadfast white allies—he urges that “until economic progress goes hand in hand with equal political rights, racial discrimination will continue to be a dominant reality in America.”

An evenhanded, wide-ranging contribution to the literature of civil rights.