Hello Family,
I hope this post finds you all in good health. As many of you know, I just completed my first book. It’s called Greater Freedom: The Evolution of the Civil Rights Struggle in Wilson, North Carolina. It explores the growth and development of a civil rights struggle in a rural county in eastern North Carolina. Here’s a quick synopsis of it:
"Greater Freedom offers a groundbreaking long-term community study of Wilson County, North Carolina. Charting the evolution of Wilson’s civil rights movement, Charles McKinney argues that African Americans in Wilson created an expansive notion of freedom that influenced every aspect of life in the region and directly confronted the state’s reputation for moderation. Through exhaustive research and a compelling narrative, McKinney chronicles the approaches and perspectives that blacks in this eastern North Carolina County utilized to confront white supremacy. In the face of violence, intimidation and marginalization, voting rights activists, educational reformers, union members, students and working class black women activists in Wilson collaborated to build a grassroots movement that helped shape the course of the national civil rights movement in America.”
My publisher, University Press of America, will only begin printing copies of the book once I’ve filled a prepublication order of one hundred copies. Can you help me out by buying a couple of copies? Or ten? Or twenty? I’ll be using the book for classes in the fall, which means that I will order forty copies for my classes. I’ll also be ordering more to give to libraries and schools in North Carolina that may be interested in civil rights studies. That leaves sixty books to go. My goal is to meet the prepublication request within the next month so the book can be published by November. I’ll be going up for tenure next year, so I’ll need to have this order completed for the book to get published – so Chuck can keep his job!
You can get copies of the book by ordering from UPA’s customer service department by calling 1-800-462-6420 or by e-mailing a customer service representative at custserv@rowman.com, and using the promotion code "UPREPUB." The representative will ask you for an ISBN number. That number is 978-0-7618-5230-8. The book sells at the low low price of $41.50 per copy. Also – if you do buy a copy (or three!) please call or email me to let me know. I’d like to keep a tab on how well the book is selling.
Thanks to all of you who are able to buy a copy of what I hope is an informative, enjoyable read. Don’t hesitate to give me a call if you have any questions. Again, thanks, ya'll.
Love,
Chuck
Sunday, May 16, 2010
The Early Reviews Are In!
Here are some early reviews of Greater Freedom:
"Historians have longed for granular and detailed local studies of the epochal Civil Rights Movement. Now with the publication of this beautifully written, adroitly researched and brilliantly argued book, their prayers have been answered resoundingly.”
Gerald Horne, author, Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s.
"The scholarly 'master narrative' and misguided popular memory of the civil rights movement, a triumphalist tale that begins with a weary seamstress in Montgomery and ends on a blood balcony in Memphis, takes a telling blow in Charles McKinney's GREATER FREEDOM: THE EVOLUTION OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLE IN WILSON, NORTH CAROLINA. McKinney unearths forty years of local organizing, revealing the violence beneath Jim Crow's racial caste system and the generations of patient labors and impatient politics that toppled that oppressive social order without escaping its grasp entirely. Here the long struggle for African American citizenship in the South, culminating in a radical, mass-based Black Power movement led by black women, comes out of history's shadows and walks in the light. Electoral politics and battles over education, labor, housing, and poverty all take their place here, held together by a deep, generational understanding of the local nature of the movement. McKinney's deep insights into the local dynamics of African American freedom politics defy conventional understandings of 'civil rights' and "Black Power,' revealing a hardscrabble landscape that historians of regional, national and international approaches must incorporate as we move towards any valid new synthesis of the movement in the South. This is an important and much-needed contribution to African American and Southern history."
Timothy B. Tyson, author of Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power and Blood Done Sign My Name.
"Greater Freedom renders plainly visible the people of Wilson County, North Carolina and lays bare the place they called home. It also shows exactly how African Americans organized to secure such basic rights as quality education and decent housing and explains why they fought for these rights with such fervor for so many years. It is a masterful work of local history and an equally marvelous work of movement history."
Hasan Kwame Jeffries, author of Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama's Black Belt
In Greater Freedom, Charles W. McKinney, Jr. creates a vivid and engaging study of the unfolding of local civil rights struggles in rural North Carolina. With an impressive use of rare archival research, interviews and secondary sources, this study focuses on a wide cross-section of local black activists who confront violent and recalcitrant forces of white supremacy, more associated with the Deep South than North Carolina. His special attention to the centrality of women and working class African Americans broadens our understanding of local freedom struggles and the dynamics of class, gender and “progressive” politics in the four decades leading up to the 1970s. This is a valuable and original contribution to the corpus of civil rights scholarship.”
Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, author of Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity
“With a compelling, storytelling style, Charles McKinney paints a vibrant, complex portrait of the civil rights struggle in the eastern North Carolina community of Wilson. He details African-American networks and movement centers, making visible the long-term commitment and small steps that served as the base for the more dramatic, visible moments. McKinney digs past North Carolina's progressive image, analyzing the various ways white supremacy manifested, but he pays particular attention to the internal dynamics of the black community. Here he makes a major contribution, bringing to life the ways class and gender played out in the community and movement. McKinney offers an engaging story, while weighing in on the major historiographical debates of the day. In the process, he expands our sense of movement goals and actors in the ongoing quest for ‘Greater Freedom.’”
Emilye Crosby, author of A Little Taste of Freedom: The Black Freedom Struggle in Claiborne County, Mississippi
Is this compelling or what? Go ahead and pre-order your copy today!
"Historians have longed for granular and detailed local studies of the epochal Civil Rights Movement. Now with the publication of this beautifully written, adroitly researched and brilliantly argued book, their prayers have been answered resoundingly.”
Gerald Horne, author, Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising and the 1960s.
"The scholarly 'master narrative' and misguided popular memory of the civil rights movement, a triumphalist tale that begins with a weary seamstress in Montgomery and ends on a blood balcony in Memphis, takes a telling blow in Charles McKinney's GREATER FREEDOM: THE EVOLUTION OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLE IN WILSON, NORTH CAROLINA. McKinney unearths forty years of local organizing, revealing the violence beneath Jim Crow's racial caste system and the generations of patient labors and impatient politics that toppled that oppressive social order without escaping its grasp entirely. Here the long struggle for African American citizenship in the South, culminating in a radical, mass-based Black Power movement led by black women, comes out of history's shadows and walks in the light. Electoral politics and battles over education, labor, housing, and poverty all take their place here, held together by a deep, generational understanding of the local nature of the movement. McKinney's deep insights into the local dynamics of African American freedom politics defy conventional understandings of 'civil rights' and "Black Power,' revealing a hardscrabble landscape that historians of regional, national and international approaches must incorporate as we move towards any valid new synthesis of the movement in the South. This is an important and much-needed contribution to African American and Southern history."
Timothy B. Tyson, author of Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power and Blood Done Sign My Name.
"Greater Freedom renders plainly visible the people of Wilson County, North Carolina and lays bare the place they called home. It also shows exactly how African Americans organized to secure such basic rights as quality education and decent housing and explains why they fought for these rights with such fervor for so many years. It is a masterful work of local history and an equally marvelous work of movement history."
Hasan Kwame Jeffries, author of Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama's Black Belt
In Greater Freedom, Charles W. McKinney, Jr. creates a vivid and engaging study of the unfolding of local civil rights struggles in rural North Carolina. With an impressive use of rare archival research, interviews and secondary sources, this study focuses on a wide cross-section of local black activists who confront violent and recalcitrant forces of white supremacy, more associated with the Deep South than North Carolina. His special attention to the centrality of women and working class African Americans broadens our understanding of local freedom struggles and the dynamics of class, gender and “progressive” politics in the four decades leading up to the 1970s. This is a valuable and original contribution to the corpus of civil rights scholarship.”
Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, author of Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity
“With a compelling, storytelling style, Charles McKinney paints a vibrant, complex portrait of the civil rights struggle in the eastern North Carolina community of Wilson. He details African-American networks and movement centers, making visible the long-term commitment and small steps that served as the base for the more dramatic, visible moments. McKinney digs past North Carolina's progressive image, analyzing the various ways white supremacy manifested, but he pays particular attention to the internal dynamics of the black community. Here he makes a major contribution, bringing to life the ways class and gender played out in the community and movement. McKinney offers an engaging story, while weighing in on the major historiographical debates of the day. In the process, he expands our sense of movement goals and actors in the ongoing quest for ‘Greater Freedom.’”
Emilye Crosby, author of A Little Taste of Freedom: The Black Freedom Struggle in Claiborne County, Mississippi
Is this compelling or what? Go ahead and pre-order your copy today!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)