Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781107697973)

Did the civil rights movement impact the development of the American state? Despite extensive accounts of civil rights mobilization and narratives of state building, there has been surprisingly little research that explicitly examines the importance and consequence that civil rights activism has had for the process of state building in American political and constitutional development. Through a sweeping archival analysis of the NAACP's battle against lynching and mob violence from 1909 to 1923, this book examines how the NAACP raised public awareness, won over American presidents, and secured the support of Congress. In the NAACP's most far-reaching victory, the Supreme Court ruled that the constitutional rights of black defendants were violated by a white mob in the landmark criminal procedure decision Moore v. Dempsey. This book demonstrates the importance of citizen agency in the making of new constitutional law in a period unexplored by previous scholarship.

Author: Megan Ming Francis
ISBN-10: 1107697972
ISBN-13: 9781107697973
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 04/21/2014
Pages: 216
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.60d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 01/01/2015 pg. 893