Review by Choice Review
Over the last dozen years, historians of the civil rights movement have focused their attention on community-based nonviolent direct action. Among the tactics of these activists was the strategy of "jail, no bail." Colley (Univ. of Dundee, Scotland) makes a persuasive argument that historians must reexamine the influence and role of deliberate imprisonment as part of the strategy to make the movement a moral crusade. Covering the period from 1960 to 1965, the author discusses the tension this strategy created among civil rights organizations. For example, the NAACP, whose members tended to be older, challenged Jim Crow through the courts and saw imprisonment as reinforcing the stereotype that African Americans were incapable of being responsible adults, while the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee argued that the southern criminal justice system used jail to intimidate those who would challenge white privilege in the South. Beginning with the sit-ins in 1960 and culminating with the "Bloody Sunday" march in 1965, Colley demonstrates how the "jail, no bail" tactic moved the movement from a response to a crisis to an event that drew media notice and focused the country's attention on the injustice of segregation. Summing Up: Recommended. All academic levels/libraries. D. O. Cullen Collin College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
