And Gently He Shall Lead Them: Robert Parris Moses and Civil Rights in Mississippi

In the words of Manhattan lawyer Burner, Robert Parris Moses, a black teacher from New York City, was ``one of the most important yet most elusive figures'' of the civil rights movement. Given Moses's noncooperation, this brief study--which relies almost exclusively on secondary sources--can hardly penetrate the subject's psyche. Rather, this is a Moses-centric history of the early 1960s civil rights movement in Mississippi, describing the leader's move toward greater radicalism regarding black political and economic power, his consensual leadership style, his work organizing the 1964 ``Freedom Summer'' involving white college students and his disillusionment after the rejection of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the 1964 Democratic Convention. After a self-imposed exile teaching in Tanzania from 1969 to 1977, Moses returned to the United States, received a MacArthur Foundation ``genius'' grant and established the Algebra Project to teach math in the inner cities and in Mississippi. While Burner's intentions are worthy, his coverage of his subject is disappointingly limited. Photos not seen by PW. (June)