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221 Acknowledgments It is appropriate to begin by thanking my dissertation committee. My appreciation especially goes to my adviser, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, for all the time and intellectual energy that she poured into shaping this book. A remarkably gifted writer and editor, she generously provided a wealth of perceptive comments, writing suggestions, and excellent ideas that immeasurably improved this work, molded me into a better historian, and made this project more enriching and enjoyable. I am blessed to have had such a dedicated, gracious, and exceptional adviser. I thank her for opening doors for me and believing in me. W. Fitzhugh Brundage served as the second reader. He suggested that I focus on black politics in the first place, and this work bears his imprint as well. Throughout my graduate career, he always generously provided me with excellent ideas for my work, and the papers that I did for his seminars helped me further my research. I thank him for his support, help, and confidence in me during my graduate school journey . William R. Ferris’s unwavering enthusiasm and support made this book project and my graduate career more pleasurable. His suggestions enhanced this book, especially his advice to incorporate cultural details and engaging quotes. I also thank his assistant, Dana DiMaio, for his help. Larry J. Griffin and Genna Rae McNeil were the other two committee members. My conversations with them, their comments on my work, and their enthusiasm forwarded this book. It has been an honor to work with Steven Lawson as well. He reviewed my dissertation proposal and two conference papers and also provided me with invaluable suggestions for books on Republican Party politics. He solicited my manuscript for this series and served as an excellent editor, reliably providing feedback, encouragement, and guidance. He was patient and prodding, and it is a pleasure to know him. At the University Press of Kentucky, my thanks goes to Anne Dean Watkins, the senior acquisitions editor, and her assistant, Bailey 222 Acknowledgments Johnson, for all the hard work and time they spent on the project. Anne Dean’s advocacy of and enthusiasm for this project as well as her kindness and competence meant a lot. My copyeditor, Joseph Brown, meticulously edited the manuscript, and his changes and corrections very much improved it. Three readers reviewed this manuscript; my thanks go to Carroll Van West, Eric Arnesen, and the reader who decided to remain anonymous for their serious and thoughtful evaluations , which greatly improved this manuscript. I thank Dr. Van West particularly for his suggestion to focus more on the role of ministers and the church. I especially wish to thank Eric Arnesen not only for his meticulous, thorough, and insightful report but also for his support and encouragement of my research and for our intellectual exchanges throughout the years. He generously dug through his files and provided me with long pdfs of new research material for this manuscript and urged and inspired me to mine databases of recently digitized black newspapers. A number of people deserve my thanks in Washington, DC, where I received my undergraduate education at American University, and where this book had its genesis as a course project. It has been one of the most wonderful honors of my life to know Julian Bond, whom I had as a professor at American University. I could not have had a better teacher for learning in depth about the civil rights movement for the first time. My course project for his oral histories of the civil rights movement class turned into my senior honors thesis, which he generously agreed to advise. This book is an outgrowth of that thesis. While in graduate school, I took his University of Virginia bus tour on the history of the civil rights movement. He and his wife, Pam Horowitz, the coleader of the trip, made this experience possible and provided good company; in addition, he answered all my research questions during the trip. All in all, I thank Professor Bond for his kindness and support over the years. The American University Honors Program provided funding for my 2000 trip to Memphis. Its former director, Professor Michael Mass, has been particularly kind and supportive over the years, as has Paula Warrick, the director of the American University office of Merit Awards. She recruited me to compete for a Harry S. Truman Scholarship and poured a lot of time and energy into helping me with the application process. I am grateful to the Harry S...

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