Hasan Kwame JeffriesBloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama's Black Belt. New York: New York University Press. 2009. Pp. xx, 348. $39.00

A new generation of scholars is leaving its mark on the history of the black freedom struggle. This study of Lowndes County, Alabama—made famous as the birthplace of the Lowndes County Freedom Party (LCFP) that first used the black panther as its logo—fills an important gap in that history. The book shows that the local context is essential to understanding why and how oppressed people were able to find a way to gain autonomy. Hasan Kwame Jeffries provides historical evidence to recover a complicated and nuanced story of black political expression rooted in Alabama's Black Belt.

This work contests the tenets of the long civil rights movement thesis that locates the genesis of modern civil rights activism in the New Deal and World War II; Jeffries thinks “it ought to extend further, both forward and backward in time” (p. 257)....