|
|||||||||
|
 |
||||||
|
|
In Black Victory, Darlene Clark Hine examines a pivotal
breakthrough in the struggle for black liberation through the
voting process. She details the steps and players in the 1944
U.S. Supreme Court decision in Smith v. Allwright,
a precursor to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. She discusses the role
that NAACP attorneys such as Thurgood Marshall played in helping
black Texans regain the right denied them by white Texans in the
Democratic Party: the right to vote and to have that vote count.
Hine illuminates the mobilization of black Texans. She
effectively demonstrates how each part of the African American
community—from professionals to laborers—was essential to this
struggle and the victory against disfranchisement.
"[Black Victory] is an exceptionally informative and useful book and the author must be recognized for her contribution to the fields of American jurisprudence in general and black political history in particular. This work fills a void that has long existed in literature dealing with Southern white supremacist politics. . . . Hine's study is a remarkable piece of scholarship to United States social and political history."—Journal of Negro History
"The major contribution of Hine's book is not, however, the legal history of the white primary, which is well known. Hine goes beyond legalistic details and reveals the emergence of black leadership during those difficult years. What brought black people together, and ultimately united them, was the belief that without the right to vote all their other aspirations would be thwarted. . . . Hine carefully identifies each important participant in the struggle, greatly adding to our knowledge of black Americans and broadening our perspective of the country's history, which has been for too long a white man's history."—Journal of Southern History
"Hine has given us a solid, tightly knit account of the local and NAACP quest to restore black political rights and the beginnings of blacks to build a new base for themselves in the Democratic party. The Republicans had ignored their pleas and previous contributions for far too long. As Hine also suggests, the white primary confrontation led blacks to an awareness of the power they did possess. Black Victory demonstrates how the rise of black political awareness foreshadowed the civil rights movement and changed the black political map in the 1950s and 1960s."—Journal of American History
About the Author
Darlene Clark Hine is John A. Hannah Professor of History at Michigan State University in East Lansing. She is the author or editor of numerous books, including Crossing Boundaries: Comparative History of Black People in Diaspora and A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America.