Right in Michigan's Grassroots: From the KKK to the Michigan Militia by JoEllen McNergney Vinyard (review)

Book Reviews 145 many other incidents, Rogers describes Birney’s 1837 legal battle against slave catchers, which he and Salmon P. Chase fought together and lost; Birney’s role in involving the Irish patriot Daniel O’Connell in the abolitionist cause; his influence on Harriet Beecher Stowe; and his residence at Eagleswood, a utopian community established by New England transcendentalists at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, where Birney spent the last years of his life. In 1842 Birney purchased property along the Saginaw River. Michigan was favorable to antislavery, and in settling there Birney hoped to recover from the 1840 election and recoup earlier financial losses. Michigan readers will be especially interested in chapter 13, “Michigan’s ‘Wonderful Revolution.’” Here Rogers covers Birney’s years in Michigan in the 1840s and describes and explains the favorable support antislavery received in the state. In 1845, Birney was partially paralyzed after he was thrown from a horse, which curtailed some of his political activities. D. Laurence Rogers’s excellent biography is a long overdue tribute to Birney and to his sons, who played major roles as officers in the Union Army. (In the last three chapters of Apostles of Equality Rogers covers the Civil War careers of Birney’s descendants, primarily General William Birney and General David Bell Birney.) In truth, Rogers has provided us with more than a biography in this work. We now have a first-rate historical account that is as much about the period and the antislavery cause as it is about the Birneys. John Fierst, Librarian Clarke Historical Library JoEllen McNergney Vinyard. Right in Michigan’s Grassroots: From the KKK to the Michigan Militia. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011. Pp. 342. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Cloth, $70.00; paper, $27.95. This book provides a historical overview of far-right movements in Michigan during the twentieth century. The study was thoroughly researched and is based upon the author’s examination of primary data, including movement documents and media accounts as well as interviews with participants and other activists. Vinyard notes at the outset that the subjects of her book— supporters of right-wing movements such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the early 1900s, Father Coughlin in the 1920s and 1930s, the John Birch Society in the 1960s, and the Michigan Militia in the 1990s—are 146 The Michigan Historical Review usually portrayed negatively and dismissed as hate mongers. However, Right in Michigan’s Grassroots demonstrates that movement supporters responded to the issues and grievances of a given period consistently over the years. Indeed, these movements were sometimes successful and had their goals passed into law (such as restricting immigration, and approving a statewide prohibition law in Michigan in the early 1900s that sought to keep migrants from establishments serving alcohol). Technological improvements were also used by some of the groups to address their concerns. Vinyard concludes that some of these movements became victims of their own success and declined after they had achieved some of their goals. At times, groups like the KKK also used their ties with law enforcement, local newspapers, and religious leaders to aid their endeavors. Movement members and supporters were often, in fact, ordinary if not respectable members of their communities, and individuals like those who joined the Klan in the 1920s usually did so because of their friends and families. Vinyard’s emphasis on the importance of personal ties and the links between the mainstream and “extremists” within these movements are consistent with other research. Her findings match the arguments of social-movement theories, such as resource mobilization and political process, and replicate studies of other extremist and far-right groups, although these are not addressed in the book. Right in Michigan’s Grassroots also finds that although many of these movements focused on national issues and defending the nation from threats to a shared “way of life,” it was often local factors that motivated individual participation. Interestingly, economic conditions impacted these movements in different ways. Sometimes adverse conditions motivated people to join (as was the case with Father Coughlin’s movement), while at other times negative economic conditions undermined organizations like the KKK because they forced people to focus...