Freedom on the Border: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement in Kentucky (Kentucky Remembered: An Oral History Series)

by Catherine Fosl (Author), TracyElaineK'Meyer (Author)

New
Paperback
2010
$44.12

Most scholarship on the civil rights movement has focused on the Deep South, even though border states like Kentucky also had segregation laws and a history of racialised violence. African American Kentuckians challenged racial segregation, too, but they adapted their approaches as needed, from familiar protest models in the state's larger cities to more unique strategies in isolated rural communities, where they constituted only a tiny fraction of the population. In `Freedom on the Border', 103 Kentucky civil rights activists recall their struggles to dismantle legal segregation in Kentucky. Their stories, introduced and contextualised by two historians, vividly describe pivotal moments such as the 1964 March on Frankfort, led by Martin Luther King, Jr. In addition, they unearth less familiar episodes that challenge official narratives of the movement. This book enlarges southern civil rights movement history and suggests that the battle for black equality was not just a series of mass demonstrations and campaigns. It was the sum of countless individual acts of resistance stretching past the borders of the former Confederacy and beyond the twentieth century.

Synopsis

Most scholarship on the civil rights movement has focused on the Deep South, even though border states like Kentucky also had segregation laws and a history of racialised violence. African American Kentuckians challenged racial segregation, too, but they adapted their approaches as needed, from familiar protest models in the state's larger cities to more unique strategies in isolated rural communities, where they constituted only a tiny fraction of the population. In `Freedom on the Border', 103 Kentucky civil rights activists recall their struggles to dismantle legal segregation in Kentucky. Their stories, introduced and contextualised by two historians, vividly describe pivotal moments such as the 1964 March on Frankfort, led by Martin Luther King, Jr. In addition, they unearth less familiar episodes that challenge official narratives of the movement. This book enlarges southern civil rights movement history and suggests that the battle for black equality was not just a series of mass demonstrations and campaigns. It was the sum of countless individual acts of resistance stretching past the borders of the former Confederacy and beyond the twentieth century.

$44.12

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 344
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Published: 15 Jul 2010
ISBN 10: 0813126061
ISBN 13: 9780813126067

Media Reviews

Freedom on the Border is well organized... linking the personal and political, as well as the past and the present. --Indiana Magazine of History --

Freedom on the Border serves as a valuable introduction to the considerable oral history resources on the movement available in Kentucky. --LeeAnn G. Reynolds, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society --

This work certainly brings us closer to understanding two seemingly paradoxical truths of the modern black freedom struggle: regional variations matter, and the Civil Rights movement unfolded differently within the South, across the Midwest, and in the North. -- Southern Quarterly --

This is a useful collection that provides further evidence to support the reinterpretation of the black freedom struggle and its leadership that has been underway in recent years. -- Journal of African American History --

There is much work that needs to be done when it comes to writing the history of Kentucky. Fortunately, a number of steps have been taken to correct this, and oral history projects are a key component in filling in the gaps. Freedom on the Border is one example of how these interviews can be used to further explore the role of Kentuckians within the context of major events within the history of the country. They are much needed, and hopefully this will be the first of many such efforts. --David A Serafini, Bowling Green Daily News --

The book, which shares the activists' own recollection of the struggles to dismantle legal segregation in Kentucky, is the first published study of the civil rights movement in Kentucky. --Lexington Herald-Leader --

These stories remind us that a social justice movement does not end when laws are passed or crowds dwindle, but continues as long as people experience inequality and act against it. --Linda Elisabeth Beattie, Courier-Journal --

This is an excellent way to get at what occurred...has the value of interviewing the people who actually experienced the events and who may not have a personal or political ax to grind. --Multicultural Review --

This well researched and cogently written volume introduces a unique perspective of the African American freedom struggle that has received only scant attention from most scholars. --Northern Kentucky Heritage --

. . . The book provides compelling insight into race relations and the civil rights movement in the state. --Journal of Southern History --

Fosl and K'Meyer's oral history collection illuminates an amazing variety of individual and collective tactics and strategies that Kentuckians used to fight for equality. --Wesley Hogan, Virginia State University --

Put[s] faces on the participants in the struggle for freedom from oppression and document[s] collaboration as well as contention between blacks and whites, the powerful and the powerless. -- Appalachian Journal --

Author Bio

Catherine Fosl, associate professor of women's/gender studies and director of the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research at the University of Louisville, is the author of Subversive Southerner: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South.Tracy E. K'Meyer, associate professor of U.S. history at the University of Louisville, is the author of Civil Rights in the Gateway to the South: Louisville, Kentucky, 1945 -- 1980.