Public Libraries of Suffolk County, New York

White flight, Atlanta and the making of modern conservatism, Kevin M. Kruse

eng

non fiction

White flight

electronic resource eBook

dictionaries

Kevin M. Kruse

Politics and Society in Modern America Ser

Atlanta and the making of modern conservatism

During the civil rights era, Atlanta thought of itself as "The City Too Busy to Hate," a rare place in the South where the races lived and thrived together. Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, however, so many whites fled the city for the suburbs that Atlanta earned a new nickname: "The City Too Busy Moving to Hate." In this reappraisal of racial politics in modern America, Kevin Kruse explains the causes and consequences of "white flight" in Atlanta and elsewhere. Seeking to understand segregationists on their own terms, White Flight moves past simple stereotypes to explore the meaning of white resistance. In the end, Kruse finds that segregationist resistance, which failed to stop the civil rights movement, nevertheless managed to preserve the world of segregation and even perfect it in subtler and stronger forms. Challenging the conventional wisdom that white flight meant nothing more than a literal movement of whites to the suburbs, this book argues that it represented a more important transformation in the political ideology of those involved. In a provocative revision of postwar American history, Kruse demonstrates that traditional elements of modern conservatism, such as hostility to the federal government and faith in free enterprise, underwent important transformations during the postwar struggle over segregation. Likewise, white resistance gave birth to several new conservative causes, like the tax revolt, tuition vouchers, and privatization of public services. Tracing the journey of southern conservatives from white supremacy to white suburbia, Kruse locates the origins of modern American politics. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- CHAPTER ONE: "The City Too Busy to Hate": Atlanta and the Politics of Progress -- CHAPTER TWO: From Radicalism to "Respectability": Race, Residence, and Segregationist Strategy -- CHAPTER THREE: From Community to Individuality: Race, Residence, and Segregationist Ideology -- CHAPTER FOUR: The Abandonment of Public Space: Desegregation, Privatization, and the Tax Revolt -- CHAPTER FIVE: The "Second Battle of Atlanta": Massive Resistance and the Divided Middle Class -- CHAPTER SIX: The Fight for "Freedom of Association": School Desegregation and White Withdrawal -- CHAPTER SEVEN: Collapse of the Coalition: Sit-Ins and the Business Rebellion -- CHAPTER EIGHT: "The Law of the Land": Federal Intervention and the Civil Rights Act -- CHAPTER NINE: City Limits: Urban Separatism and Suburban Secession -- EPILOGUE: The Legacies of White Flight -- List of Abbreviations -- Notes -- Index