A vivid account of the implementation of the Brown decision in the South by southern federal judges committed to the rule of law.

Bass's unlikely heroes are the federal judges-primarily those on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals-who vigorously and skillfully implemented Brown v. Board of Education in six southern states. The rich profiles show the character of the men who gave up prosperous lives, popularity, and friends to see that the constitutional rights of all citizens were protected.

 

Jack Bass is Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at the College of Charleston.

"Jack Bass has written an important book. . . . The best history of the civil rights movement I've read."

—Joe Cumming Jr., The Atlanta Constitution

"I think there has been no more heroic episode in American law than the work of southern federal judges in ending racial discrimination in the South. Jack Bass has brought this recent history to life, telling us much that we had not known."

—Anthony Lewis, New York Times