White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Politics and Society in Modern America)

As a resident of Atlanta, I have always wondered how Atlanta can be so many things at the same time. How can Atlanta be considered, "The Black Mecca", a place of unparalleled opportunities for educated and upwardly mobile African-Americans, while at the same time, Atlanta has the second highest poverty rate for Black Americans. The existence of these two phenomena were a real enigma to me. Furthermore, how can the myriad of opportunities that exist in Atlanta for educated African-Americans persist when the politics you so frequently hear articulated from the Newt Gingrich's, Bob Barr's, and the Georgia governors seems to resemble the racial views of this country several decades ago.White Flight answers all of these questions. I am reading the book for the fourth time; it is that good. Kevin Kruse, a Princeton professor is impeccable and meticulous in his scholarship, but he knows how to package his material in a way that non academics can comprehend.This book is particularly adroit at explaining the history of the coalition between the Atlanta business elite, the Atlanta's mayors and the black business and civil rights community. The book describes how this relationship changed over time and how whites reacted to increased black power by fleeing the city. The book allows you to understand how whites felt their rights were being taken away, but it does this in accurate historical terms; it doesn't paint whites as sympathetic victims who had been discriminated against and therefore warranted the sympathy of the reader.The book cogently shows how the prevailing wisdom that Civil Rights and integration destroyed the segregated south is a myth. The book explains how the flight to the suburbs allowed the preservation of a segregated state but the language that was used to describe this movement was non-racial, non-offensive and perfectly understandable to the average American. The book shows how whites learned to hone their language to adjust to the society's notion of what was acceptable. This new language was so subtle that often those who used it were not even aware themselves of the racial underpinnings behind the language.If you only read one book on Atlanta's history, read this book. Kruse is a true historian who has done his homework and he dissects Atlanta better than any other author I have read who has written about this very special and prominent city.

Living myself in the part of Intown Atlanta, which one reviewer describes as "liberal" I have recently watched with disgust as redistricting for the public schools was debated in these neighborhoods. The wealthy white populations that have taken a shine to Inman Park, Candler Park and Lake Claire screamed bloody murder at the prospect of easing overcrowding at the schools north of Dekalb Avenue, which currently have a good-size population of white students, by sending some of them to very nearby schools in Kirkwood and Edgewood, which are literally south of the railroad tracks, and have very few white students. Even though redistricting a fair size segment of the more integrated schools would effectively integrate the nearly all black schools, you would have thought these "liberal" parents were being asked to send their little darlings to school in hell. Even when it was proposed that the entire population of a middle school in Kirkwood be cleaned out and sent further south to a school outside their own neighborhood, so that only kids from North of the tracks could have the building to themselves, parents north of the tracks still opposed it because of the neighborhood. So don't call those people liberal. Most of them are every bit as racist at the crackers of the 1950's, no matter what they may think of themselves. I suspect they lie awake at night explaining to their phantom detractors that they aren't racist, and it's just those people who notice how racist they are who are bad for "playing the race card." It shocks me sometimes how little the world really changes. But I wish I could have a copy of this book sent to every address in those neighborhoods, so maybe a bit of perspective would be introduced. This history is unknown to most of the white population of Intown Atlanta. Apparently the white people who might remember have all left for Cobb County.

Kevin Kruse writes about the discrimination in a Southern city that really happened, and I witnessed it. This is a remarkable study of the times and attitudes of white Southerners defending a myth that caused a Civil War in 1860, and in the 1960s it caused a mad rush of selling properties when white people did not want to live in neighborhoods where Black people lived. General Robert E. Lee his battle for States Rights in 1865, and the white people in Atlanta lost their battle for States Rights in the 1960s. Reading the names of the leaders against the freedom of property ownership stirs memories, and I recall those incidences and people who are on the front lines of both sides. Of course, justice prevailed, and it took federal laws to settle the matter. I recommend this book to anybody that wants to know about racism in Atlanta, Georgia during the Civil Rights era. Kruse had done a powerful work in research, and he has his facts lined up to present what really happened in the City that was too busy to hate.