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Beyond Little Rock
The Origins and Legacies of the Central High Crisis
John A. Kirk
Foreword by Minnijean Brown Trickey
Black activism and race relations
in Arkansas
“An authentic discussion must take place in order to
challenge our miseducation and denial of the historical forces
that helped to shape the present.”
—From the foreword
“As this masterly collection of essays shows, no one
is better equipped than John Kirk to put the Little Rock crisis
in the context of the ‘long’ civil rights movement
in Arkansas. No one better explores the nuances of divisions
within both the black and white communities or better captures
the agency of African Americans in the development of race
relations in the state.”
—Tony Badger, University of Cambridge,
author of New Deal / New South
Based on extensive archival work, private paper collections,
and oral history, this book includes eight of John Kirk’s
essays, two of which have never been published before. Together,
these essays locate the dramatic events of the crisis within
the larger story of the African American struggle for freedom
and equality in Arkansas. Examining key episodes in state
history from before the New Deal to the present, Kirk covers
a wide range of topics that include the historiography of
the school crisis; the impact of the New Deal; early African
American politics and mass mobilization; race, gender, and
the civil rights movement; the role of white liberals in the
struggle; and the intersections of race and city planning
policy. Kirk unearths many previously neglected individuals,
organizations, and episodes, and provides a thought-provoking
analytical framework for understanding them.
John A. Kirk is professor of United States
history at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is the
author of Redefining the Color Line: Black Activism in
Little Rock, Arkansas, 1940–1970, for which he
won the 2003 J. G. Ragsdale Book Award.
Minnijean Brown Trickey made history in 1957
as one of the Little Rock Nine. In 1999 she received the Congressional
Gold Medal from President Bill Clinton.
October
6 x 9, 220 pages, index
$19.95 (s) paper
ISBN 978-1-55728-851-6 | 1-55728-851-8
$59.95 (s) cloth
ISBN 978-1-55728-850-9 | 1-55728-850-X
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