Shortly after the success of the
Montgomery Bus Boycott, the
Ku Klux Klan--determined to keep segregation as the way of life in Alabama--staged a resurgence, and the strong-armed leadership of governor
George C. Wallace, who defied the new civil rights laws, empowered the Klan's most violent members. As Wallace’s power grew, however, blacks began fighting back in the courthouses and schoolhouses, as did young southern lawyers like Charles ?Chuck” Morgan, who became the
ACLU’s southern director; Morris Dees, who cofounded the Southern Poverty Law Center; and Bill Baxley, Alabama attorney general, who successfully prosecuted the bomber of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street
Baptist Church and legally halted some of Wallace’s agencies designed to slow down integration.
Fighting the Devil in Dixie is the first book to tell this story in full, from the Klan’s kidnappings, bombings, and murders of the 1950s to Wallace running for his fourth term as governor in the early 1980s, asking forgiveness and winning with the black vote.
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Background Information
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a concerted effort by blacks in Montgomery Alabama to live without bus services in late 1955 and early 1956. The Ku Klux Klan has seen three phases, with the most recent occuring after World War II to express opposition to the aims of the Civil Rights Movement. George Wallace built a lasting career as a segregationist politician in Alabama by defying federal orders to desegregate the University of Alabama.
