Kirkus Review
A voluminous study of the background to the 1954 Supreme Court decision to abandon legalized racial separation in the public schools. Kluger offers sharp summaries of the rise of Jim Crow and the Booker T. Washington-W. E. B. Du Bols clash. The subsequent court battles are profusely elaborated with biographies of the lawyers and families involved: Kluger interviewed 135 individuals involved in major civil rights cases. The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education victory took 20 years. After a disastrous series of early-1930s Supreme Court reaffirmations of the Plessy doctrine of separate but equal, the implementation of equality was enjoined by three 193941 decisions which made no challenge to segregation itself. Jumping off from another series of partial victories along this line in the early 1950s, the NAACP prepared the ultimate school challenge; Kluger sees the victory as the accomplishment of Howard University law school head Charles Huston, his brightest graduate Thurgood Marshall, and a small group of NAACP lawyers. In addition to his absorbing biographical sketches, Kluger draws the social context chiefly with reference to the improving status of black Americans. He concedes, somewhat grudgingly, that in the 1930s, it was not the NAACP but the left and the industrial union movement that led civil rights battles both in and outside the courts. When it comes to the 1950s, Kluger provides evidence--especially in the case of Delaware--that influential pro-integration corporations were concerned with upgrading labor force skills. But Kluger does not explicitly identify this trend as a factor in creating the Brown climate. The book's main accomplishment--apart from its extensive documentation--is to recall the moral and intellectual elan of the civil rights movement, which has been depreciated in the 1970s, and to bring forward, without sentimentality, many of the organizers and ""plaintiffs"" as well as lawyers who sustained the fight. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Published to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the landmark Brown decision, this update and expansion of the widely acclaimed original work, published in 1976, goes beyond portrayals of the major players involved in the decision--the NAACP legal team, including Thurgood Marshall and Charles Houston; the defender of states' rights,ohn Davis; and Chiefustice Earl Warren, who brokered a unanimous decision shortly after joining the Court; and the complainants, who undertook personal risk to challenge the doctrine of separate but equal. In this volume,luger also analyzes the nation's progress on race issues in the intervening 28 years since the book was first published. In a new chapter, he looks at the politics and policies of the Nixon and Reagan eras--courting the South through retrenchment on racial integration and frontal attacks on busing--up to the current national obsession with colorblindness that has fostered a hypersegregation that mirrors conditions before the Brown decision. This is a powerful resource for readers interested in reviewing the particulars of Brown and the changes that have occurred since that landmark ruling. --Vernon Ford Copyright 2004 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Pulitzer Prize winner Kluger's 1976 volume is considered the definitive chronicle of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, capturing both the legal and human drama. To commemorate the history-making decision's 50th anniversary, Kluger has added a new final chapter updating civil rights developments since the book's initial publication. Even if your existing editions are still serviceable, you should consider updating with this expanded text. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.