Examining the African American stuggle for economic parity in the South after the 1960s
 
"From Rights to Economics stresses and vividly documents the long post-1968 efforts of African Americans, many of them ordinary workers and citizens, to implement the formal legal rights established in the Civil Rights Acts."—Robert H. Zieger, former professor, University of Florida

"An important epilogue to our understanding of the African American civil rights movement by demonstrating that class, labor, and unionization were still central features of the nature and direction of the civil rights movement after 1965."—Robert Cassanello, University of Central Florida

Rich with the voices of Black and white southern workers, From Rights to Economics shows how African Americans have continued fighting for economic parity in the decades since the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.

Using oral histories and case studies that focus on Black activism throughout the entire South, award-winning historian Timothy Minchin examines the work of grassroots groups—including the Southern Regional Council and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund—who struggled with the economic dimensions of the movement.

While white workers and managers resisted integration, activists' efforts gradually secured a wider range of job opportunities for Black people. Minchin shows, however, that the decline of manufacturing industry in the South has been especially difficult for the African American community, wiping out many good jobs just as Black people were gaining access to them.

Minchin also offers a detailed discussion of a major school integration battle in Louisville, Kentucky, and examines the role of affirmative action in the ongoing Black struggle.

Timothy J. Minchin is associate professor of history at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.
 
A volume in the series New Perspectives on the History of the South, edited by John David Smith

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…sheds light on both the unique strategies activists used to expand black economic opportunity…as well as significant…episodes in the ongoing Civil Rights Era.
--Florida Historical Quarterly

" Timothy Minchin's books chronicle the voices of African American workers and the union, community, religious, and political leaders struggling for economic justice in a new era of American history. They remind us that hope can overpower fear through successful struggle, which is indispensable if hope is to persist."
--Labor Studies Journal

" Minchin's gripping stories are engaging and offer an important contribution to a growing body of scholarship."
--The Journal of American History

" Minchin has interesting stories to tell about black workers' struggles for better jobs in several localities in his chosen time period."
--Arkansas Historical Quarterly

"An informative study that empowers and emancipates the subjugated schooling encounters, autobiographical narratives, and scholarly discourses of black women in an unprecedented manner and offers a valuable perspective for comprehending past and contemporary scholarship concerning black women in higher education. A must read for those interested in the historical literature on U.S. higher education, African American educational history, and women's history. Rightfully places higher education at the center of the black freedom struggle."
--The North Carolina Historical Review

"Especially important in highlighting the crucial intersection between black activism and federal policy and intervention; the nature and extent of continuing white supremacy and black protest; and the evolving positions taken by the federal government in the battle over entrenched racial discrimination."
--The Journal of Southern History

"Covers new ground and forces us to reevaluate how the movements transpired after the mid-1960s." "An important and valuable work for civil rights and labor scholars."
--Journal of American Ethnic History