The author of Inside Agitators: White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement revisits this monumental period in American history, revealing the power of religious fervor as a force of change that managed to succeed where liberal rationalism could not. Reprint.

"With keen insight, Chappell argues that not only were white southerners far from solid in their commitment to segregation during the civil rights era, but that the movement actively exploited and widened their divisions to achieve both local victories and federal intervention."--Mark Newman, Journal of American Studies"One of the many virtues of David Chappell's fascinating study is that he does not romanticize white southerners who were sympathetic toward the civil rights movement. Rather than depicting them simply as courageous dissenters, he shows that their motives for supporting civil rights reform were varied and complex -- a mixture of altruism, pragmatism, paternalism, guilt, and numerous other idiosyncratic sentiments." -- Clayborne Carson, Editor of the Papers of Martin Luther King Jr."Chappell is to be commended for struggling with hard questions about historical causation."--Robert J. Norrell, Journal of American History