Full Description
Greater Freedom offers a groundbreaking long-term community study of Wilson County, North Carolina. Charting the evolution of Wilson's civil rights movement, Charles McKinney argues that African Americans in Wilson created an expansive notion of freedom that influenced every aspect of life in the region and directly confronted the state's reputation for moderation. Through exhaustive research and a compelling narrative, McKinney chronicles the approaches and perspectives that blacks in this eastern North Carolina county utilized to confront white supremacy. In the face of violence, intimidation, and marginalization, voting rights activists, educational reformers, the collaboration of union members, students, and working class black women activists in Wilson built a grassroots movement that helped shape the course of the national civil rights movement in America.
Contents
Chapter 1 List of Abbreviations Chapter 2 Acknowledgements Chapter 3 Map of Wilson County Chapter 4 Introduction Chapter 5 1. Building Freedom from the Ground Up Chapter 7 2. The Idea of Citizenship Was Never Greater: Organizing the Foundations of a Movement Chapter 8 3. "A Little Too Much for a Self-Respecting White Man to Swallow": Brown and its Aftermath Chapter 9 4. We Began to Question Where We Never Questioned Before: The Struggle to Build a Movement Chapter 10 5. Somewhere Down the Line We Decided to Organize: Integration, Housing and the Ascendancy of "Lower Income Negro Citizens" Chapter 10 Conclusion: Race, Class, Memory and the Pursuit of Greater Freedom Chapter 11 Selected Bibliography Chapter 12 Index
