Jack Bass – författare

An account of how a handful of courageous federal judges used the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to complete the long-neglected task of Reconstruction.

Stressing the relevance of The Transformation of Southern Politics as a background for understanding the South into the next century, Jack Bass and Walter De Vries write that the "themes of change in southern politics still involve the rise of the Republican Party, black political development and the Democratic response to it—and the interaction of these forces with social and economic issues." The Transformation of Southern Politics examines the post-World War II political evolution of the eleven southern states and traces the effects of such influences as Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, urban migration, the growth of the Republican Party, and the rise of African Americans in the political landscape.Relying on the methodology that V. O. Key used in his 1949 classic Southern Politics in State and Nation, the work draws on interviews with more than 360 politicians, scholars, journalists, and labor leaders, and includes a wealth of data on voting trends, political perceptions, and population flow to present a comprehensive portrait of the region up to the 1976 presidential election. In the preface to the Brown Thrasher edition, Bass and De Vries offer an overview of the region's current political climate, including an analysis of the 1994 mid-term elections. They also provide excerpts from their interview with Bill Clinton during his first campaign for political office.

In Strom , Jack Bass and Marilyn W. Thompson deliver a remarkable look at the life of a remarkable , and complicated , politician. First elected to public office in 1929, Strom Thurmond was a pivotal figure in the nation's politics for more than seven decades particularly when it came to issues of race: the Dixiecrat presidential candidate in 1948, originator of the 1956 "Southern Manifesto" against the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, holder of the record for a Senate filibuster for his opposition to the 1957 Civil Rights Bill. Yet as a young man Thurmond had secretly fathered a daughter with the family's black maid, and quietly supported her through college and beyond. An intense public examination of Thurmond's legacy began when he left the Senate at age 100, continued when he passed away soon after and only grew when Essie Mae Washington-Williams announced in December 2003 that she was the senator's long-rumored black daughter. Bass and Thompson know Strom better than anyone. They both covered him for years and broke the big stories. In Strom , they tell us a great deal about power and politics in our nation and race's twisted roots in the 20th century South.