Better Day Coming

From the end of postwar Reconstruction in the South to an analysis of the rise and fall of Black Power, acclaimed historian Adam Fairclough presents a straightforward synthesis of the century-long struggle of black Americans to achieve civil rights and equality in the United States. Beginning with Ida B. Wells and the campaign against lynching in the 1890s, Fairclough chronicles the tradition of protest that led to the formation of the NAACP, Booker T. Washington and the strategy of accommodation, Marcus Garvey and the push for black nationalism, through to Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and beyond. Throughout, Fairclough presents a judicious interpretation of historical events that balances the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement against the persistence of racial and economic inequalities.Better Day Coming - Adam Fairclough Acknowledgments
Preface
1. The Failure of Reconstruction and the Triumph of White Supremacy
2. Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching
3. Booker T. Washington and the Strategy of Accommodation
4. The Rise of the NAACP
5. The Great War and Racial Equality
6. Marcus Garvey and the UNIA
7. The Radical Thirties
8. Blacks in the Segregated South, 1919-42
9. The NAACP's Challenge to White Supremacy, 1935-45
10. Two Steps Forward and One Step Back, 1946-55
11. The Nonviolent Rebellion, 1955-60
12. The Civil Rights Movement, 1960-63
13. Birmingham, the Freedom Summer, and Selma
14. The Rise and Fall of Black Power
15. The Continuing Struggle

Notes
Index

"In the hands of Adam Fairclough, BETTER DAY COMING, does more than any other book to place the historic Civil Rights Movement within the broader scope of the Black Freedom Struggle in the twentieth century. A distinguished historian has crafted an impressive narrative of persistence and resistance, heroism and timidity. A must read for the rising generation of young people for whom the Civil Rights Movement has been relegated to ancient history." —Steven F. Lawson Rutgers University

"Just right and badly needed. I know of no other text that covers these years. I will definitely adopt." —Daniel Levine, Bowdoin College

 

Adam Fairclough teaches American history at the University of East Anglia in England. His books include To Redeem the Soul of America and Martin Luther King, Jr.