Backfire: how the Ku Klux Klan helped the civil rights movement

David Chalmers

Rowman & Littlefield, 2003 - History - 207 pages

In Backfire, the leading historian of the Ku Klux Klan brings the story of America's oldest terrorist society up-to-date. David Chalmers tells the stories of Imperial Wizard Robert Shelton, David Duke, and Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center, and follows the forty-year struggle to punish Klan murderers through the courts of Alabama, Georgia, and the U.S. Supreme Court. In his analysis, Chalmers shows how Klan violence actually aided the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and helped revolutionize the role of the national government in the protection of civil rights.
While focused on the Klan's activities in the twentieth-century, Backfire also looks beyond the abuses of the past. Through an examination of groups like the neo-Nazis, Aryan Nations, Christian Identity, and the Patriot Movement, Chalmers explores the new face of the white supremacist Right.

Contents

• Key Players: vii
• The Challenges of the 1960s: 1
• LaissezFaire Violence Confusion after the School Decision: 5
• Bombingham: 15
• Friends in High Places: 21
• Freedom Riding: 27
• The Long Hot Summer: 39
• Mississippi: 47
• Selma: 61
• Making the Justice System Work: 67
• Klansmen on Trial the Klans Campaign of Terror against the Jews of Mississippi: 77
• Decline: 87
• Birminghams 16th Street Baptist Church the Black Jesus: 97
• Confrontation PoorBoy Politics Revival in the Late 1970s: 107
• Death in Greensboro: 115
• David Duke Steps Forward: 125
• Klan Hunters Morris Dees the Southern Poverty Law Center: 137
• Yesterday Today Forever Klansmen Klanswomen Terrorists Loose Cannons: 145
• The Fifth Era An Explosion on the Right Coda Patrick J Buchanan: 163
• Essay on Sources: 187
• Acknowledgments: 195
• Index: 197
• About the Author: 205
• Art Credits: 207

About the author

David Chalmers is the author of And the Crooked Places Made Straight: The Struggle for Social Change in the 1960s and Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan. He went to jail with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in St. Augustine, Florida, and was an expert witness in Federal Court in Chattanooga, and a consultant to President Johnson's National Violence Commission. He is Distinguished Service Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of Florida.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Backfire: how the Ku Klux Klan helped the civil rights movement
• Author: David Chalmers
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003
• ISBN: 0742523101, 9780742523104
• Length: 207 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / 20th Century; History / United States / General; Political Science / Civil Rights; Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies; Social Science / Minority Studies