This in-depth account of the rise
  and decline of the Citizens' Councils of America details the organization's
  role in the massive resistance to school desegregation in the South following
  the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Included are a new preface and
  updated bibliography.
 "A tour de force of research and
  narration. . . in highly readable style. [McMillen] . . . seems to have read
  everything the historical record has to offer on the subject and to have known
  exactly what to make of it. . . Himself squarely on the side of the future,
  he is sensitive to the anguish that prompted the hysteria of the misguided racist. . . .
  By any test, a masterful study." -- Journal of Southern History
 "Takes seriously the people who
  made the movement, when ridicule and caricature would have been an easier analytical
  technique. Solidly researched and well written. . . an intriguing story." --
  Augustus M. Burns, Social Studies
 
 

Model City Blues tells the story of how regular people, facing a changing city landscape, fought for their own model of the “ideal city” by creating grassroots plans for urban renewal. Filled with vivid descriptions of significant moments in a protracted struggle, it offers a street-level account of organized resistance to institutional plans to transform New Haven, Connecticut in the 1960s. Anchored in the physical spaces and political struggles of the city, it brings back to center stage the individuals and groups who demanded that their voices be heard.

By reexamining the converging class- and race-based movements of 1960s New Haven, Mandi Jackson helps to explain the city's present-day economic and political struggles. More broadly, by closely analyzing particular sites of resistance in New Haven, Model City Blues employs multiple academic disciplines to redefine and reimagine the roles of everyday city spaces in building social movements and creating urban landscapes.