A Little Taste of Freedom: The Black Freedom Struggle in Claiborne County, Mississippi.

A Little Taste of Freedom: The Black Freedom Struggle in Claiborne County, Mississippi. By Emilye Crosby. John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, c. 2005. Pp. xx, 354. Paper, $21.95, ISBN 0-8078-5638-X; cloth, $55.00, ISBN 0-8078-2965-X.)

Emilye Crosby's history of the Claiborne County freedom struggle seeks to debunk Mississippi Burning and conventional narratives of the civil rights movement. This is a model study. As befitting a Claiborne native, Crosby has a comprehensive grasp of local detail and personalities yet keeps an eye on the wider implications at all times. The book is also a riveting read.

Claiborne's history is a compelling reminder that in many local communities across the South, the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965) marked the beginning, not the end, of demonstrations that are most associated with the civil rights movement. In Claiborne's case, local activists organized a movement just as the famous Mississippi freedom struggle began to disintegrate through so-called battle fatigue. After the Voting Rights Act, African American voters in Claiborne were suddenly in the majority. Throughout 1966, African Americans marched and boycotted stores in order to win "equal opportunity, in every aspect of life" (p. 112). The protests ended after a settlement leading to the desegregation of public buildings, the hiring of some clerks, and the promise of better treatment for black customers. Crosby brings the story right up to date, assessing not just the achievements of the protest (political gains and economic hardship) but also how activists perceive their position and contemporary race leaders.

Crosby's history is far more than a narrative of previously unsung heroes. Rather, Crosby's activists are complicated, but none more so than Charles Evers, the charismatic leader of the local movement. He embraced self-defense and made alliances with white segregationists; he inspired massive crowds yet kept the spotlight on himself; and he championed confrontation yet negotiated an unsatisfactory compromise without consultation. Later, as mayor of Fayette, he threw his support behind Ronald Reagan.

Not surprising, Crosby's history of the movement is also far from being a heroic African American community versus Ku Klux Klan morality tale. The movement started in earnest with protests against all-black Alcorn College. Throughout, there was tension concerning the best way to coerce African Americans who had not volunteered their support. Consequently Crosby's history has much to tell about leadership and movement mobilization. A Little Taste of Freedom: The Black Freedom Struggle in Claiborne County, Mississippi also has much to say about self-defense, exploring the ways in which violence opened up space for nonviolence. For instance, the local self-defense group falsified its minute book to make the group look much stronger than it was--and then ensured that the local sheriff stole it.

There is no doubt that anyone reading this book will reject the Mississippi Burning stereotypes. But this in turn begs the question: to what extent can history books, even as compelling as A Little Taste of Freedom, challenge popular culture and social memory? After all, historians have long rejected the Mississippi Burning version of history. In the epilogue, Crosby suggests one answer to this question. She tells the story of an exhibition in Claiborne County, "No Easy Journey." Crosby's involvement in the exhibition led her to observe that black and white Claiborne County residents "share a past" but "they do not share an understanding of that past" (p. 271). Some visitors to the exhibition clearly moved toward a more shared understanding. How to communicate with those who did not come to the exhibition, or will not read the book, is another matter.

STEPHEN TUCK

Oxford University