Backfire

David Chalmers is the author of And the Crooked Places Made Straight: The Struggle for Social Change in the 1960s and Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan. He went to jail with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in St. Augustine, Florida, and was an expert witness in Federal Court in Chattanooga, and a consultant to President Johnson's National Violence Commission. He is Distinguished Service Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of Florida.

The country's foremost authority on the Ku Klux Klan, David Chalmers has written a compelling, highly readable account of the disturbing persistence of racism and violence over nearly a century. At a time of concern over homeland security incited by the assaults of September 11, Backfire commands our attention.

• Chapter 1: The Challenges of the 1960s Chapter 2: Laissez-Faire, Violence, & Confusion after the School Decision Chapter 3: Bombingham Chapter 4: Friends in High Places: George Wallace Chapter 5: Freedom Riding Chapter 6: The Long Hot Summer Chapter 7: Mississippi Chapter 8: Selma Chapter 9: Making the Justice System Work Chapter 10: Klansmen on Trial & the Klan's Campaign of Terror against the Jews of Mississippi Chapter 11: Decline Chapter 12: Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church & the Black Jesus Chapter 13: Confrontation, Poor-Boy Politics, & Revival in the Late 1970s Chapter 14: Death in Greensboro Chapter 15: David Duke Steps Forward Chapter 16: Klan Hunters: Morris Dees & The Southern Poverty Law Center Chapter 17: Yesterday, Today, Forever: Klansmen, Klanswomen, Terrorists, & Loose Cannons Chapter 18: The "Fifth Era": An Explosion on the Right—Coda: Patrick J. Buchanan Essay on Sources