Civil rights and political space

Sweet Land of Liberty is a survey of the northern civil rights movement. Thomas Sugrue, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has read a rich, secondary literature and added much research of his own. His definition of civil rights is broad, as is appropriate. He begins in the wake of the Great Migration of World War I, when significant numbers of southern blacks migrated to northern cities and ends in the present. If not the “forgotten struggle” that he advertises, it is the fullest one-volume history we have of northern civil rights activity. He arranges the narrative chronologically, although this organization is cloaked by expressive chapter titles that suggest mood more than subject or time—“God Have Pity on Such a City,” “Unconditional War.” Sugrue tells many fascinating stories of challenges to racial barriers in housing, public accommodations, employment, and schools. But the book lacks a structure that can sustain 543 pages of text.