Divine agitators : the Delta ministry and civil rights in Mississippi / by Mark Newman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Newman, Mark.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Civil rights movements--Mississippi--History--20th century.

Civil rights movements.

Civil rights--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Civil rights.

African Americans--Civil rights--Mississippi.

African Americans.

Mississippi--Race relations--History--20th century.

Mississippi.

Delta Ministry.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (373 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Athens [Ga.] : University of Georgia Press, c2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The National Council of Churches established the Delta Ministry in 1964 to further the cause of civil rights in Mississippi-the southern state with the largest black population proportionately and with the stiffest level of white resistance. At its height the Ministry, which was headquartered in Greenville, had the largest field staff of any civil rights organization in the South. Active through the mid-1970s, the Ministry outlasted SNCC, CORE, and the SCLC in Mississippi, helping to fill the vacuums when these organizations fell apart or refocused their energies. In this first book-length study of the Delta Ministry, Mark Newman tells how the organization conducted literacy, citizenship, and vocational training. He documents the Ministry's role in fostering the growth of Head Start and community-based health care and in widening the distribution of free surplus federal food and food stamps. Newman discusses, among other Ministry successes, the Delta Foundation, which created jobs by channeling grant money to small businesses that could not secure bank loans. At the same time, he details the Ministry's problems from its chronic underfunding to its uneasy relationship with the Mississippi NAACP, which pursued civil rights objectives through less confrontational methods. Newman examines the Freedomcrafts manufacturing cooperative and other ministry failures, as well as mixed efforts such as Freedom City, a collective agricultural and manufacturing community built by displaced agricultural workers. Divine Agitators looks at many inadequately studied events across a time span that extends beyond the widely accepted end dates of the civil rights movement. It offers new insights, at the most local levels of the movement, into conflict within and between civil rights groups, the increasing subtlety of white resistance, the disengagement of the federal government, and the rise of Black Power.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

List of Abbreviations

ONE. The Origins and Creation of the Delta Ministry

TWO. External Relations, Internal Policy, 1964-1965

THREE. Hattiesburg, 1964-1967

FOUR. McComb, 1964-1966

FIVE. Greenville and the Delta, 1964-1966

SIX. Under Investigation

SEVEN. Freedom City

EIGHT. Changing Focus, 1967-1971

NINE. Internal Dissension and Crisis

TEN. Winding Down

ELEVEN. Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613031327

9781283031325

1283031329

9780820340203

0820340200

OCLC:

706076565