African American Religion and the Civil Rights Movement in Arkansas.

African American Religion and the Civil Rights Movement in Arkansas. By Johnny E. Williams. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, c. 2003. Pp. xxvi, 177. $40.00, ISBN 1-57806-545-3.)

Johnny E. Williams explores the connections between religion and the civil rights movement. He examines the ways in which indigenous culture in religious organizations and the meaning of equal rights and freedom created therein galvanized African American civil rights activism in Arkansas. Williams acknowledges the fear of police harassment and the loss of jobs that kept African Americans from political activism. Yet, some were brave. It was this "small cadre" that was able to "create and sustain a vigorous movement in Arkansas" (p. xvii).

A sociologist by training, Williams reveals not only the impact of religion on African American political behavior but also the effects of religious culture on African American collective activism. By combining these two elements, he charts the historical development of religious ideas that led to African American civil rights activism in Arkansas from 1954 to 1964.

Although he has a firm understanding of the historiography of the civil rights movement, Williams admits that his study is based on "few resources and little permanent power" (p. xxi). Indeed, this seems to be the case in spite of his reliance on the expertise of many (though certainly not all) scholars of African American history, numerous sociological studies, and local newspapers to fill in the gaps.

Williams begins with a discussion of social movement theory and follows with a history of how religion inspired African American political activism from the time of slavery. He puts particular emphasis on Arkansas during this period. In the remaining six chapters, he charts the connection between religion and civil rights activism from Reconstruction to the decades preceding the desegregation of Little Rock's Central High School in 1957.

The organizational setting of the African American church provided the foundation for civil rights activism, but Williams also demonstrates how religious organizations' auxiliaries, predominantly headed by women, contributed to their participation in Arkansas's civil rights movement. He analyzes how separate organizations allowed women to create "gendered culture and social networks" that made it nothing less than their religious obligation to involve themselves in civil rights activism (p. xxv).

Despite the two different styles of citation that made reading this work tedious at t+imes, Williams proves that religion, religious organizations, and their auxiliaries provided African Americans with a space, figuratively and literally, to cultivate civil rights activism, as well as the social networks that made that activism an imperative. Readers interested in various interpretations of civil rights activism would do well to add this book to their collection.

Arkansas State University 

CHERISSE R. JONES