Civil Rights in the Gateway to the South

The struggles of the civil rights movement were not limited to the Deep South. Although states like Alabama and Mississippi receive the most attention from historians, civil rights leaders were active across the country, challenging racial stereotypes and working to end discrimination in cities large and small. Louisville, Kentucky's unique status as a border city between the North, South, and Midwest presented local civil rights leaders with fertile ground on which to pursue their agenda and their efforts would foreshadow the future direction of the national movement. Civil Rights in the Gateway to the South: Louisville, Kentucky, 1945--1980, fills a void by focusing on four decades of Louisville's civil rights history. Using a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, including oral history records of movement participants, Tracy E. K'Meyer connects the movement in Louisville to related movements in other cities in the region and across the nation. Civil Rights in the Gateway to the South offers insight into how America's race relations got to where they are today, and clues to their future direction.