Dan Moody: Crusader for Justice by Ken Anderson (review)

and Prairie View. Employees also helped establish 4-H clubs and helped fund and build community canning facilities so that farm families could not only better feed themselves, but could also learn the value of diversifying their means of income. Although the division was under the ultimate authority of a white power structure , Reid’s analysis reveals how black employees maneuvered within this racist system to improve life for rural blacks and, importantly, for themselves and their profession. Some employees decided to use their expertise to reform rural life in Africa and Latin America when the Cold War offered such opportunities, while others began using the media (“Southern Fireside Chats”) and other public forums to expand their programs to a larger, nonfarm and more racially diverse audience. According to Reid, however, passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the “integration” of the Texas Agricultural Extension ironically seemed to do more damage to black agents than the racist system it supposedly outlawed. Marginalized within an integrated institution, agents who did not lose their jobs lost much of their ability to advocate for black farmers after 1965. Reaping a Greater Harvest excels at bringing to light the work of black agents in the Agricultural Extension Service in Texas, and fills a gap in the growing historiography of the African American’s experience in Texas. Although Reid does point out that hierarchies of gender existed within the Negro Division, this topic is not thoroughly examined in the current work. Thus, Reaping a Greater Harvest raises important research questions, especially with regard to gender roles and the intersections of race, gender, and class in rural Texas. Texas Lutheran University Rebecca A. Kosary Dan Moody: Crusader for Justice. By Ken Anderson. (Georgetown, Tex.: Georgetown Press, 2008. Pp. 208. Black-and-white plates, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 978-0-96444-214-6. $25.00, cloth.) Prominently featured on the cover of Ken Anderson’s new book Dan Moody: Crusader for Justice is a burning cross—a most recognizable symbol of the hate, bigotry, and violence perpetrated by that most famous of American white supremacist organizations, the Ku Klux Klan. In tracing the life and times of the youngest man ever elected Texas governor, Anderson attempts to rescue and reassert the historical significance of Dan Moody to the broader narrative of the Klan’s demise, both in Texas and nationally, while positioning Moody at the heart of late-Progressive-Era reforms against abuses in government power, most notably the modus operandi of the infamous first couple of Texas political corruption , Jim and Miriam Ferguson. Though Moody’s career is certainly a focus worthy of reexamination by historians, Anderson’s contribution, though laudable in its attempt at narrative synthesis, is undermined by a lack of coherent thesis , objective, and structure. What we are left with is a reasonable overview of Moody’s political career and an underwhelming analysis of the relationship between Moody and the downfall of the second Ku Klux Klan. In addition to the cover’s prominently featured burning cross, the book jacket 342 Southwestern Historical Quarterly January *jan 09 11/26/08 12:00 PM Page 342 descriptions emphasize, to the exclusion of all other topics, Moody’s successful prosecution of four Klansman for the 1923 assault of an adulterous traveling salesman who refused to heed warnings that he should leave Georgetown or face the consequences of his un-American behavior. Anderson even begins his first chapter by boldly arguing that, “Dan Moody’s courtroom and ballot box successes altered Texas history. As the first real setback for the 1920s Klan, it can also be argued that they altered American history” (p. 2). Anderson undoubtedly makes a contribution by connecting Moody’s successful prosecution of the Klan—he was, in fact, the first district attorney in Texas to obtain prison sentences against Klan members—with the downfall of both the state and national organization. Yet, one might hope for a more thorough treatment of the Klan’s power and control in Texas in the years prior to Moody’s emergence in the Williamson County District Attorney’s office. Instead, readers are left to assume much about Klan motivations and applications of “100% Americanism...