As a Southerner who started first grade in a segregated classroom in 1966, attended a "token" integrated classroom in 1967, and attended an all-white private school thereafter, I found this book interesting and hard to put down. I agree with the praise given by other posters, although I do have some criticisms.

The author relies on research and publications of the past, which is understandable. There is no other way the book could be written today. The book deals mostly with the period 1955 to 1975, but the failure to update a few facts could almost be taken as an intentional effort to mislead the reader.

For example, we are told that the business leadership of Yazoo City, Miss., strongly supported the public schools, and as a result after integration the schools remained 40 percent white. This is true, but today, the Yazoo City school system is 97 percent black. I discovered this fact after 30 seconds on the Internet, so why couldn't the author provide this information.

Likewise, the author suggests that white life goes on as always in places like Eutaw, Ala., where everyone happily attends the "safety-valve" Warrior Academy. Again, a web search quickly reveals that Warrior Academy has only 118 students, K-12. An October 22, 2002 story in the Birmingham News, "Private white academies struggle in changing world," describes how most Alabama Black Belt academies are providing a sub-standard education and barely keeping their doors open. These facts contradict the author's conclusions, so he just leaves them out.

The author correctly notes that the poor whites shouldered the burden of integration, although I do wonder how the author could suggest it was a burden, since he also suggests it provided them with their "freedom." Most poor and working class whites exercised their new freedom by moving. The result is that is many Southern communities there literally are no or few working class or poor white people left.

I would suggest to any scholar wishing to study integration in the South that he start by finding the full-page newspaper advertisements by prominent white parents declaring their support of public schools (i.e. Yazoo City, Rolling Fork, among others), and then follow up where their children actually graduated high school. In short, find out why those who wanted to support public education and integration left the public schools, despite their public proclamations of support. Doing so might provide the best guide for the education of Southern children.

This is an interesting book well worth reading. It wasn't quite as eye-opening for me, being a Southern of a certain age. The only complaint I might have is that the book is an overview and as such it starts to bog down toward the end. As it covers the more familiar ground of the late 60's and early 70's, it's a bit like studying a synopsis for a course. In the earlier phase of the book, 1945 - 1955, it is original and engaging. At one point the author cites source material briefly, noting that no one has ever made a full study of the papers he's using. I feel a richer book would have been achieved if he had stopped his timeline a decade sooner and gone into more depth in the early years, when the South was just waking up to the changes. by the late 60's it's a juggernaut of facts instead of a slow awakening of justifications and assumptions. The author maintains a fair point of view without being condescending or apologetic. If you're not Southern, it may help you understand some of the ripple effect experienced in conversations about race today. After all, most of the people in this book are still living, working, and assuming.

This book is a disappointment; it is an academician's view of things. This subject cries out for a Studs Terkel-type, average-man-of-the-times interview series. We should get it in their own words, a retrospective look back by Southerners who lived through that period, one interview after another. Furthermore, the book should be without Northern commentary. Having lived through it myself in Mobile, I can tell you that feelings among white Mobilians ranged the gamut from quiet desperation and nervous hand-wringing to bitter resentment, though the resentment was aimed not so much at black people as at the Federal government and what was widely perceived as white Northern agitators, especially those who came down from the North for the sole purpose of what was seen as "meddling in business that was not their own": In other words, the natural hostility towards outsiders who interfere in the affairs of locals. In the late '50s the most deeply resented man by Southerners was President Eisenhower, because his sending troops into Little Rock felt like a second Federal invasion of the South. Most white Southerners were, however, embarrassed by the brute tactics of Bull Conner and his ilk, and were appalled by physical violence of any sort against anyone, black or white.
The enforced integration of schools and public places was, for the most part, well tolerated; it was the forced busing and more extreme components of the Civil Rights Acts of the '60s that were more resented, particularly those which infringed on the rights of private property and private ownership. These things are still (quietly) resented today, as is a certain self-righteousness among some Northerners regarding those times.
It is worth noting that many people in the South felt a grim satisfaction in observing the great difficulties encountered later in many Northern cities when it became their turn to integrate the schools (Boston comes immediately to mind), not to mention the riot-torn cities of Detroit, Newark, and so many others. Furthermore, white Southerners historically have hardly had a monopoly on racial oppression. The Federal government executed and maintained one of the most sweeping and successful racial extermination policies of any government on the face of the Earth. I believe it was a Yankee general, General Sheridan, who spoke most eloquently for his government when he said, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."

Jason Sokol has done a good job of separating the undifferentiated mass of southern whites from the individuals. Certainly, the white south wasn't one monolithic rabid front, waving Klan crosses and standing in the schoolhouse doors. He has taken a good concept -- that integregation affected everyone differently --- but fails to take it to its logical conclusion. His analysis of the role of the church in promoting (and sometimes resisting) desegregation is good. For further reading, I suggest "The Race Beat: The Press, The Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation" by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, both veteran reporters of the civil rights movement.

I enjoyed this book. It came from a different perspective as most civil rights books. I still do not feel sorry for white people that the world finally caught on that African Americans are human, but I better understand their mindset at the time. Just for the record, I am white, but I like to think of all humanity as people, not colors, races, ethnicities, etc....

Jason Sokol makes a compassionate, nuanced, brave examination of so many subtle and not-so-subtle changes that took place within white southern hearts, minds and communities. An eye-opener and a page-turner for me. A valuable addition to the field of history. An important book for all Americans to read.

One of the best written, most thought provoking books I have ever read. It covers a vast amount of material in an extraordinarily well organized manner. And the writing style can only be described as riveting. Recommednded without reservation.