A seminal but nearly forgotten figure in the American Civil Rights movement receives his due in this richly detailed biography by Elliot, history professor at Warner College. The Ohio-born Tourgee (pronounced Toor-zhay
) served in the Union Army during the Civil War, studied law and found his life's calling in North Carolina during Reconstruction. African-Americans and civil rights advocates hailed him as a dedicated champion of the political, legal and economic rights of former slaves, while many southern whites called him a Yankee carpetbagger. Later, Tourgee (1838–1905) produced 15 novels, eight books of nonfiction, and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles on race and racial injustice. In addition to founding the National Citizen's Rights Association in 1891, he helped write the nation's first antilynching law in Ohio in 1896 and served as lead attorney in the famed Plessy
v. Ferguson
, the first constitutional challenge to segregation argued before the Supreme Court. (Tourgee coined the phrase "color-blind justice" in his Supreme Court brief in that losing effort.) Elliott goes a long way toward restoring Albion Tourgee's name to a prominent place on the list of American civil rights heroes. 20 b&w photos. (Dec.)
