Synopses & Reviews
In a new assessment of the Civil Rights Movement, Chappell argues that its success was not due to the triumph of liberal ideas after decades of gradual progress, but to the tradition of prophetic religion that brought the vitality of a religious revival to the integrationist cause. Segregationists lost, he says, because they did not have support in their white southern religious denominations.
Review
It's impossible to read the book without doing some fundamental rethinking about the role religion can play in . . . public life. New York Times
Review
[Chappell's] new interpretation of the civil rights movement is a first-rate work of history. . . . The book is a major contribution to civil-rights history: clearly written, prodigiously researched and forcefully argued. . . . A Stone of Hope respects the public power of religion, but it also brings Dr. King and his co-workers down from the mountaintop, transfiguring them into human beings. Wall Street Journal
Review
"[A] pathbreaking study of prophetic Protestantism and the camapaign against Jim Crow."
Commonwealth
Review
Intricate, dazzling in its reach into so many corners of black and white Southern life and fascinating at every turn. . . . In its mix of rigor, daring and perceptiveness, A Stone of Hope is a spectacular work. New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
The civil rights movement was arguably the most successful social movement in American history. In a provocative new assessment of its success, David Chappell argues that the story of civil rights is not a story of the ultimate triumph of liberal ideas af
About the Author
David L. Chappell teaches history at the University of Arkansas. He is author of Inside Agitators: White Southerners in the Civil Rights Movement.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1. Hungry Liberals: Their Sense That Something Was Missing
Chapter 2. Recovering Optimists
Chapter 3. The Prophetic Ideas That Made Civil Rights Move
Chapter 4. Prophetic Christian Realism and the 1960s Generation
Chapter 5. The Civil Rights Movement as a Religious Revival
Chapter 6. Broken Churches, Broken Race: White Southern Religious Leadership and the Decline of White Supremacy
Chapter 7. Pulpit versus Pew
Chapter 8. Segregationist Thought in Crisis: What the Movement Was Up Against
Conclusion. Gamaliel, Caesar, and Us
Appendix. A Philosophical Note on Historical Explanation
Notes
Archival and Manuscript Sources
Bibliographical Essay
Acknowledgments
Index