Righteous Lives: Narratives of the New Orleans Civil Rights Movement

This academic study charts the distinctly different experiences and memories of 25 black and white civil rights activists over three ``generations'' in New Orleans, opening with a deft sketch of the city's unusual racial background with its black Creole caste. Rogers, an associate professor of history at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, focuses first on the ``integrationists'' who in the 1950s fought official ``Massive Resistance'' to desegregate libraries and buses. The ``political generation'' of the early 1960s used lawsuits to integrate schools, and also registered black voters. The ``protest generation'' of the mid-1960s defined black liberation as its goal and left a legacy of cultural and political organizations. Somewhat sociologically, Rogers concludes by analyzing how the interviewees' recollections are structured in relation to their race, class and gender. Photos not seen by PW . (Feb.)