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BOOK REVIEWS 90 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY After the Dream: Black and White Southerners since 1965 Timothy J. Minchin and John A. Salmond One of the great unexamined areas of the civil rights struggle has been the postKing era. Historians have generally focused on the years of the movement after World War II, 1945-1968, covering major aspects of the movement with verve, intellect, and skill. Yet the period following Dr. King’s death has received little attention until recently. Some historians have focused on certain aspects of the post-1968 era, such as white backlash or the conservative ascendency, while more recently other scholars have examined how the movement led to the rise of President Barack Obama. Especially missing is a cogently written , objective study of the South after 1965. In their magisterial book, After the Dream: Black and White Southerners since 1965, Timothy J. Minchin and John A. Salmond have delivered the historical profession a fluid, highly readable , and impeccably researched account of the challenges, struggles, and successes of civil rights in the last forty-five years. The authors examine the importance of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 to demonstrate why and how this landmark legislation improved the lives of southern African Americans. Breaking down the walls of Jim Crow and de jure segregation were important in eliminating the dual system of inequality. But the authors note the changing nature of civil rights advocacy, showing expertly how the movement shifted toward economic and enforcement concerns. They detail the problems faced by agencies tasked with enforcing civil rights laws, including the lack of adequate funding, staffing, and political support. Especially valuable is the authors’ conscientious attention to the nuanced and complex responses of both whites and blacks to the monumental social and political changes that enveloped the South. In the years following 1968, the Nixon and Ford administrations confronted an empowered African American political class determined to preserve and build upon the victories of the 1960s. While Nixon’s “southern strategy” helped to deliver the South to the Republican Party, cultural and social issues also played an important role. The Democratic Party’s growing isolation from its working class, blue collar supporters, combined with its support of minorities, women, and homosexuals, served to fuel the mass exodus of southerners from the party. As these people turned their focus from economic to cultural issues, conservative arguments about limited government, morality, and law and order resonated with many whites in the South. The authors superbly illuminate how busing, affirmative action, and resistance played major roles in this political process in the 1970s and 1980s. As many historians note, the 1970s were a period of growing conservative cultural resistance to the 1960s. In this area, Minchin and Salmond could have examined more fully the national trends of the 1970s and the heightened response among southerners to a rapidly changing social, political, and cultural environment. It is the Ronald Reagan through George W. Bush years where the authors really contribute to historians’ understanding of southern race relations. Reagan’s 1980 victory symbolized the end of the New Deal coalition and, as political historians have made abundantly clear, the beginning of the second stage of the conservative movement. Reagan’s suspicion of, dislike for, and opposition to the civil rights movement sent a powerful signal to southerners. While the book clearly notes the ways in which the Reagan administration enforced the law, it falls short by giving the Reagan Justice Department too much credit for enforcing civil rights regulations. They simply did their job. However, the tone, behavior, actions, and extreme reluctance of BOOK REVIEWS SUMMER 2011 91 those officials arguably worsened race relations . In the South, this was most apparent as southerners felt more comfortable trying to preserve a system of racial superiority. Moreover, in the years since Reagan’s election, blacks have been on the defensive against a determined and resourceful conservative opposition that frequently has tried to roll back civil-rights advances. Here, the authors shine as they reveal the ways in which conservatives undermined the promise of the civil rights movement through colorblind rhetoric and narrow interpretations of the law. One of the great...

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