AmeriKKKa

Thomas Sugrue

  • Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Raymond Arsenault
    Oxford, 690 pp, £19.99, March 2006, ISBN 0 19 513674 8

It is canonical in the American classroom, on television and in popular culture to celebrate the black civil rights movement as the triumph of American universalism, the vindication of the ‘American creed’ of egalitarianism, colour blindness and individual liberty against the forces of oppression that long held blacks in a subservient status. Americans remember the struggle for racial equality as a morality play, pitting nonviolence against racist violence, love against hatred. It is a Christian story of redemptive suffering and even martyrdom, as activists sacrificed their bodies to save the soul of America.

You are not Logged In

  • If you have already registered login here
  • If you are a print subscriber using the site for the first time please register here
  • If you are not yet a subscriber you can subscribe here
  • If you are a member of a subscribing institution or University library please login here
  • If you have an Institutional print subscription and online access is not included, find out about our Institutional online subscriptions