I'Ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle

Rating:
Summary: Read this Book!
Review: As a history major, I have various interests. One of my favorite things to study is the civil rights movement. Of all the books that I have seen, few match the caliber of this book. It takes the state of Mississippi (which may be the book's greatest irony)and shows how powerful a grassroots movement such as the civil rights movement can be with the proper forms of leadership. I urge anyone who is interested in learning about the civil rights movement should start with this book!

Rating:
Summary: Brilliance that doesn't blind but illuminates
Review: I agree with the earlier reviews but I'd like to provide some details about this book's strengths.
First, Payne places the people who made the Mississippi movement at the center the story. He tells the story of both the original local leaders who made it possible for the civil rights movement to happen in Mississippi and the activists who followed their lead in the 1960s.
Second, he extends the time span of the civil rights movement, showing that it would not have been possible without the "organizing tradition" referred to in the subtitle. Payne expertly traces the relationships and linkages between different generations of heroic troublemakers in Mississippi.
Third, he shows that the original radicals, and I mean those who wanted to change Mississippi from its roots, were those who had already challenged the system to achieve personal gain. "Bourgeois" blacks in Mississippi weren't uniformly complacent or fearful. Wisely, Payne does not use this fact to justify any notion of a "talented tenth" that ought to lead the masses.
Fourth, the chapter on Ella Baker is a stunning and riveting account of one heroic troublemaker who didn't receive enough recognition for her efforts.
Fifth, when Payne writes about what we typically consider the civil rights movement, he places you in the midst of the activists and makes you feel their exhileration, exhaustion, frustration, fear, and courage. Scholarly books never have this quality. At the same time, he does this in a historical context and with a critical eye which absolutely illuminate the raw material in a way that first-person and journalistic treatments rarely approach.
For these reasons, and many more, this is clearly the best of many excellent books on the civil rights movement. Some could fault Payne for placing less emphasis on the national and institutional dimensions of the freedom struggle. But, in the case of the black American struggle for freedom, Payne shows us the story begins with, and is carried by, people who tried to change their communities, not their nation.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliance that doesn't blind but illuminates
Review: I agree with the earlier reviews but I'd like to provide some details about this book's strengths.
First, Payne places the people who made the Mississippi movement at the center the story. He tells the story of both the original local leaders who made it possible for the civil rights movement to happen in Mississippi and the activists who followed their lead in the 1960s.
Second, he extends the time span of the civil rights movement, showing that it would not have been possible without the "organizing tradition" referred to in the subtitle. Payne expertly traces the relationships and linkages between different generations of heroic troublemakers in Mississippi.
Third, he shows that the original radicals, and I mean those who wanted to change Mississippi from its roots, were those who had already challenged the system to achieve personal gain. "Bourgeois" blacks in Mississippi weren't uniformly complacent or fearful. Wisely, Payne does not use this fact to justify any notion of a "talented tenth" that ought to lead the masses.
Fourth, the chapter on Ella Baker is a stunning and riveting account of one heroic troublemaker who didn't receive enough recognition for her efforts.
Fifth, when Payne writes about what we typically consider the civil rights movement, he places you in the midst of the activists and makes you feel their exhileration, exhaustion, frustration, fear, and courage. Scholarly books never have this quality. At the same time, he does this in a historical context and with a critical eye which absolutely illuminate the raw material in a way that first-person and journalistic treatments rarely approach.
For these reasons, and many more, this is clearly the best of many excellent books on the civil rights movement. Some could fault Payne for placing less emphasis on the national and institutional dimensions of the freedom struggle. But, in the case of the black American struggle for freedom, Payne shows us the story begins with, and is carried by, people who tried to change their communities, not their nation.

Rating:
Summary: If you're going to read one book on civil rights, this is it
Review: I'd pair the book with a more nationally-oriented one, such as the Taylor Branch trilogy, which give a better sense of national politics, but Payne's book is both profound and profoundly moving in its depiction of local communities and Ella Baker's "Organizing Tradition", which turns a number of assumptions about the movement on their head. I've read the book a few times with students and never fail to be personally engaged and to have invigorating classes with students. Great, great stuff!