From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality

New
Illustrated
2006
$23.19

A monumental investigation of the Supreme Court's rulings on race, From Jim Crow To Civil Rights spells out in compelling detail the political and social context within which the Supreme Court Justices operate and the consequences of their decisions for American race relations. In a highly provocative interpretation of the decision's connection to the civil rights movement, Klarman argues that Brown was more important for mobilizing southern white opposition to racial change than for encouraging direct-action protest. Brown unquestioningly had a significant impact-it brought race issues to public attention and it mobilized supporters of the ruling. It also, however, energized the opposition. In this authoritative account of constitutional law concerning race, Michael Klarman details, in the richest and most thorough discussion to date, how and whether Supreme Court decisions do, in fact, matter.

Synopsis

A monumental investigation of the Supreme Court's rulings on race, From Jim Crow To Civil Rights spells out in compelling detail the political and social context within which the Supreme Court Justices operate and the consequences of their decisions for American race relations. In a highly provocative interpretation of the decision's connection to the civil rights movement, Klarman argues that Brown was more important for mobilizing southern white opposition to racial change than for encouraging direct-action protest. Brown unquestioningly had a significant impact-it brought race issues to public attention and it mobilized supporters of the ruling. It also, however, energized the opposition. In this authoritative account of constitutional law concerning race, Michael Klarman details, in the richest and most thorough discussion to date, how and whether Supreme Court decisions do, in fact, matter.

$23.19

Quantity

10 in stock

More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 128
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A.
Published: 04 May 2006
ISBN 10: 0195310187
ISBN 13: 9780195310184

Media Reviews

Michael J. Klarman's monumental book * undertaking a sweeping exploration of the causes and consequences of all of the Supreme Court's race decisions from Plessy v. Ferguson to Brown vs. Board of Education *
Klarman's scholarly text is unique in that it encompasses not only the decision itself, but also the events before and after. * Elaine Cassel, author of The War on Civil Liberties *
Of all of the many books published recently on the occasion of Brown's fiftieth anniversary, the most ambitious is Michael J. Klarman's comprehensive history of federal race-relations law from the late nineteenth century until the early 1960s...Klarman's study is a major achievement. It bestows upon its fortunate readers prodigious research, nuanced judgment, and intellectual independence. * Randall Kennedy, The New Republic *
Magisterial... * The New York Review of Books *
A highly accessible analysis of the interplay between the Supreme Court and U.S. race relations. * Booklist *
This luminous study explores the relationship between the Supreme Court and the quest for racial justice.... a sweeping, erudite, and powerfully argued book that, despite its heft, is unfailingly interesting. * Wilson Quarterly *
Michael Klarman's authoritative account of constitutional law concerning race * from the late 19th century through the 1960s *
Michael Klarman's exhaustively researched study is essential reading for anyone interested in civil rights, the Supreme Court, and constitutional law. Accessible to ordinary readers, students, and scholars, Klarman's book presents a challenging argument that places the Supreme Court's civil rights decisions in their social and political context, and deflates overstated claims for the importance of the Supreme Court's work while identifying carefully the precise contributions the Court made to race relations policy from 1896 through the 1960s. * Mark Tushnet, author of Taking the Constitution Away from the Courts *
Pulling together a decade of truly magnificent scholarship, this extraordinary book bids fair to be the definitive legal history of perhaps the most important legal issue of the twentieth century. There is no one from whom I have learned more * and whom I enjoy reading more *
From Jim Crow to Civil Rights is a bold, carefully crafted, deeply researched, forcefully argued, lucidly written history of law and legal-change strategies in the civil rights movement from the 1880s to the 1960s, and a brilliant case study in the power and limits of law as a motor of social change. Among the hundreds of recent books on the history of civil rights and race relations, Klarman's is one of the most original, provocative, and illuminating, with fresh evidence and fresh insights on practically every page. * Robert W. Gordon, Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and Legal History, Yale University *
Michael J. Klarman has written an exhaustive * and according to many reviewers a definitive *

Author Bio

Michael J. Klarman is the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Professor of History at the University of Virginia. After graduating from Stanford Law School, Klarman clerked for the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg and then earned his D. Phil. from Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with his spouse, Lisa Landsverk, and their four children.