Law and Local Knowledge in the History of the Civil Rights Movement

Abstract

Book Review Essay focusing on Tomiko Brown Nagin's Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and The Long History of the Civil Rights Movement (Oxford University Press, 2012), which assesses recent political science-oriented scholarship that argues that Brown v. Board of Education had little effect on the civil rights movement and was counterproductive in the short term. The review argues that this scholarship is ahistorical and that Courage to Dissent serves as a useful corrective.