About the Book
This momentous work offers a groundbreaking history of the early civil rights movement in the South with new material that situates the book in the context of subsequent movement literature.
I've Got the Light of Freedom
The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle, With a New Preface
by Charles M. Payne (Author)
Price: $34.95 / £30.00
Publication Date: Mar 2007
Edition: 1st Edition
Title Details:
Rights: World
Pages: 552
ISBN: 9780520251762
Trim Size: 6.125 x 9.25
Illustrations: 27 b/w photographs
About the Author
Charles M. Payne is Professor and Bass Fellow, African American Studies, History and Sociology, Duke University
Table of Contents
PREFACE TO THE 2007 EDITION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
ONE
SETTING THE STAGE
TWO
TESTING THE LIMITS
Black Activism in Postwar Mississippi
THREE
GIVE LIGHT AND THE PEOPLE WILL FIND A WAY
The Roots of an Organizing Tradition
FOUR
MOVING ON MISSISSIPPI
FIVE
GREENWOOD
Building on the Past
SIX
IF YOU DON'T GO, DON'T HINDER ME
The Redefinition of Leadership
SEVEN
THEY KEPT THE STORY BEFORE ME
Families and Traditions
EIGHT
SLOW AND RESPECTFUL WORK
Organizers and Organizing
NINE
A WOMAN S WAR
TEN
TRANSITIONS
ELEVEN
CARRYING ON
The Politics of Empowerment
TWELVE
FROM SNCC TO SLICK
The Demoralization if the Movement
THIRTEEN
MRS. HAMER IS NO LONGER RELEVANT
The Loss if the Organizing Tradition
FOURTEEN
THE ROUGH DRAFT OF HISTORY
EPILOGUE
BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY:
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF HISTORY
NOTES
INTERVIEWS
INDEX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
ONE
SETTING THE STAGE
TWO
TESTING THE LIMITS
Black Activism in Postwar Mississippi
THREE
GIVE LIGHT AND THE PEOPLE WILL FIND A WAY
The Roots of an Organizing Tradition
FOUR
MOVING ON MISSISSIPPI
FIVE
GREENWOOD
Building on the Past
SIX
IF YOU DON'T GO, DON'T HINDER ME
The Redefinition of Leadership
SEVEN
THEY KEPT THE STORY BEFORE ME
Families and Traditions
EIGHT
SLOW AND RESPECTFUL WORK
Organizers and Organizing
NINE
A WOMAN S WAR
TEN
TRANSITIONS
ELEVEN
CARRYING ON
The Politics of Empowerment
TWELVE
FROM SNCC TO SLICK
The Demoralization if the Movement
THIRTEEN
MRS. HAMER IS NO LONGER RELEVANT
The Loss if the Organizing Tradition
FOURTEEN
THE ROUGH DRAFT OF HISTORY
EPILOGUE
BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY:
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF HISTORY
NOTES
INTERVIEWS
INDEX
Reviews
— Publishers Weekly"Not a comprehensive history of the civil rights movement in Mississippi, this thoughtful study instead analyzes the legacy of community organizing there. . . . Concentrating on the delta city of Greenwood, he offers useful profiles of local activists, showing that many came from families with traditions of social involvement or defiance. He also explores the disproportionate number of female volunteers, the older black generation's complex interactions with whites and the decline of organizing as the 1960s proceeded."
— Library Journal"An illuminating examination of the Civil Rights movement at the local level, in this case Greenwood, Mississippi, in the 1960s. As Payne deftly grafts Greenwood's struggle onto the larger movement, he challenges several widely accepted conclusions, such as overemphasizing a core cadre of male leaders while overlooking the important contributions of women and youth and the belief that the black church was an early leader in the movement. Much of Payne's information is culled from oral interviews with actual movement participants. The result is an important history of the Civil Rights movement at the grass-roots level . . . The excellent bibliographic essay is essential reading. Recommended for any library that collects Civil Rights materials."
“With this history of the civil rights movement focusing on Everyman-turned-hero, the commoner as crusader for justice, Payne challenges the old idea that history is the biography of great men.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Remarkably astute in its judgments and strikingly sophisticated in its analyses . . . it is one of the most significant studies of the Black freedom struggle yet published.”—David J. Garrow, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Bearing the Cross
“This extremely important book clearly reveals the logic of how ordinary people propelled the civil rights movement. . . . [It] provides a basis for optimism as we approach the next century.”—Aldon Morris, author of The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement
“Remarkably astute in its judgments and strikingly sophisticated in its analyses . . . it is one of the most significant studies of the Black freedom struggle yet published.”—David J. Garrow, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Bearing the Cross
“This extremely important book clearly reveals the logic of how ordinary people propelled the civil rights movement. . . . [It] provides a basis for optimism as we approach the next century.”—Aldon Morris, author of The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement