Freedom Bound: A History of America's Civil Rights Movement

In an invaluable, fast-paced chronicle that throws three decades of civil rights struggles into sharp perspective, Weisbrot ( Father Divine and the Struggle for Racial Equality ) argues that the coalition forged by blacks and liberal whites in the 1960s fomented only a self-limited revolution. It abolished formal barriers to equality, he notes, but left intact the basic features of a system that confines blacks to a subordinate or marginal role. The author charts a movement beset by racism and indifference, from the early sit-ins and boycotts, through ``black power'' and the waves of mass protest, to today's federal retrenchment on protection of civil rights. Weisbrot maintains that mainstream groups such as CORE failed to win a broad base of support, while black separatists offered no vehicles for transforming social and economic conditions. He further establishes that blacks have been disproportionately hurt by Reagan's domestic policies. Photos. (Nov.)