"The Ticket to Freedom": The NAACP and the Struggle for Black Political Integration.

"The Ticket to Freedom": The NAACP and the Struggle for Black Political Integration. By Manfred Berg. Foreword by John David Smith. New Perspectives on the History of the South. (Gainesville and other cities: University Press of Florida, c. 2005. Pp. xx, 352. $29.95, ISBN 0-8130-2832-9.)

One of the more remarkable gaps in the historiography of the long struggle for black equality in the United States has been the absence of a comprehensive history of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the oldest and best-known civil rights organization in the country. Manfred Berg's remarkable new book, "The Ticket to Freedom": The NAACP and the Struggle for Black Political Integration, is a wonderful contribution that begins to close that gap.

Berg examines the history of the NAACP through the lens of politics, and particularly the long battle for the right to vote. This approach allows him to break free of the tendency among journalists and historians to limit the NAACP to the standard narrative in which a small cadre of lawyers used the courts to challenge segregated schools, culminating in victory in Brown v. Board of Education, a fight that, while vitally important, tends to understate the scope and ambitions of the organization. Berg restores the importance of politics and voting to their rightful place in the NAACP's history and in so doing adds depth to our understanding not only of the NAACP but also of the political world in which it operated. Even with this particular emphasis, Berg provides the closest we yet have to a comprehensive history of the organization. The focus on suffrage, far from being a limiting factor, instead allows Berg to explore and recapture the NAACP's larger relevance since its inception in 1909.

From the very beginning, when a small group of black and white intellectuals founded the organization, the NAACP had to deal with not only white supremacy and inertia on the race question but also a host of factors that limited, challenged, and shaped its growth. Over the course of its long history the NAACP confronted internal divisions, membership and funding difficulties, and most of the usual problems that beset organizations. But it also had to address problems and limitations posed by two World Wars, a potentially devastating pair of Red Scares and general anti-Communist witch hunts, presidential administrations that tended to range from the hostile to the indifferent, and increasingly ardent and violent white resistance, oftentimes fueled by the rhetoric and actions of local, state, and national political figures. Even within the civil rights movement, the NAACP confronted the rise of competing organizations that challenged what they saw to be the tepid tactical approach of the association and later the very ideological foundation of an integrated America that was at the heart of the organization's program.

Berg presents a sympathetic but not uncritical picture. Indeed, part of his mission seems to be to redeem an organization that, for all of its importance and visibility, historians increasingly have tended to recognize in the breach. Berg's NAACP is not tepid and cautious. Instead it is vibrant and visionary, tackling multiple issues through the courts of law and public opinion, occasionally supporting direct-action challenges where necessary but aware that its long-term vision sometimes required it to forgo viscerally satisfying confrontations in order to maintain the course. Inevitably this brought the leadership into conflict with members within the NAACP--most notably co-founder W. E. B. Du Bois--and also from without, such as the challenges that groups like the Congress of Racial Equality, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and advocates of Black Power posed over the years. Sometimes these squabbles could be petty, regarding territorial jealousy or personal rivalries. Oftentimes, though, there were important principles and strategies at issue.

"The Ticket to Freedom" is gracefully written and lucidly argued. The fluidity of Berg's writing style is all the more impressive when one considers the book's origins. Originally a Habilitationsschrift, a second dissertation that is common in the German doctoral system, the book began its life as a monograph in his native language. It stands as an important accomplishment in any language and is one of the most important new books on the history of the civil rights movement to emerge in recent years. One hopes that Berg's work will serve as a catalyst for further scholarship on an organization that may have fallen out of fashion among scholars but that deserves serious and more comprehensive study. Berg reminds us of the NAACP's primary importance in the struggle not just for political rights but also for human rights.

DEREK CHARLES CATSAM

University of Texas of the Permian Basin