This book enriches our understanding of a key moment in the American civil rights movement--the struggle to desegregate the nation's largest school system. With clarity and detail, Taylor examines the social history and context behind this campaign, as well as the personal background and quest for a just society of one of its central figures, Milton A. Galamison, a major civil rights leader, and a respected champion for racial and economic justice. This thoughtful work is an important addition to the scholarship on civil rights and school integration. It contributes a great deal to the discourse on race and class in America.

Clarence Taylor is associate professor of history and African new world studies at Florida International University and author of The Black Churches of Brooklyn.