Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy, 25th anniversary edition

by Mary L. Dudziak

Overview

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year
How the fight for civil rights in America became an important front in the Cold War

In 1958, an African American handyman named Jimmy Wilson was sentenced to die in Alabama for stealing less than two dollars. Shocking as this sentence was, it was overturned only after intense international attention and the interference of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Soon after World War II, American racism became a major concern of US allies, a chief Soviet propaganda theme, and an obstacle to American Cold War goals throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Racial segregation undermined the American image, harming foreign relations in every administration from Truman to Johnson. Mary Dudziak shows how the Cold War helped to facilitate desegregation and other key social reforms at home as the United States sought to polish its image abroad, yet how a focus on appearances over substance limited the nature and extent of progress. Cold War Civil Rights situates the Cold War in civil rights history while giving an international perspective to the fight for racial justice in America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691274324
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	06/17/2025
Series:	Politics and Society in Modern America
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Mary L. Dudziak is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University. Her books include War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences and Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall’s African Journey.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Mary Dudziak’s Cold War Civil Rights is a monumental achievement. This classic study offers a nuanced examination of the Cold War’s impact on the struggle for civil rights in the United States. The book is as timely and invaluable today as when it was first released. Cold War Civil Rights captures the brilliance of a distinguished legal historian and remarkably skilled writer and researcher.”—Keisha N. Blain, coeditor of the #1 New York Times bestseller Four Hundred Souls

"Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Mary Dudziak's book makes a spectacularly illuminating contribution to a subject traditionally neglected—the linkage between race relations and foreign policy: neither African American history nor diplomatic history will be the same again."—Gerald Horne, author of Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois

"Reinhold Niebuhr once commented that blacks cannot count on the altruism of whites for improvements in blacks' condition. Readers who think Niebuhr's remark was unfair to whites need to read this book. Mary Dudziak documents, in impressive detail, how the self-interest of elite whites instigated, shaped, and limited civil rights gains for blacks during the Cold War years. Raises serious questions about the future of racial justice in America."—Richard Delgado, Jean Lindsley Professor of Law, University of Colorado

"This book is a tour de force. Dudziak's brilliant analysis shows that the Cold War had a profound impact on the civil rights movement. Hers is the first book to make this important connection. It is a major contribution to our understanding of both the civil rights movement and the Cold War itself. Because it is beautifully written in clear, lively prose, and draws its analysis from dramatic events and compelling stories of people involved from the top level of government to the grass roots, it will be an outstanding book for both students and the general public. I recommend it with no hesitation and with great enthusiasm."—Elaine Tyler May, author of Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era

"This book reflects a growing interest among historians in the global significance of race. It is accessible and will have multiple uses as an approach to civil rights history, as an examination of policy making, and as a model of how a study can be attentive to both foreign and domestic aspects of a particular issue. It is tightly argued, coherent, and polished, and it features some particularly fine writing."—Brenda Plummer, author of Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935-1960

Editorial Reviews

"This nuanced, scholarly appraisal of the relationship between foreign policy and the civil rights story offers a fresh and provocative perspective on twentieth-century American history."

Harvard Law Review

"Dudziak earns high praise for her superb work."

Choice

"[An] important book"—-H. W. Brands, Reviews in American History

"[A] meticulously researched and eloquently composed study."—-Desmond King, Times Higher Education

"In her long-awaited book, Mary Dudziak brilliantly demonstrates the interconnections between race relations and the American response to the early Cold War. . . . Dudziak sets a new standard for literature on race and Cold War foreign policy. . . . Her work deserves a wide audience."—-Laura A. Belmonte, Journal of Cold War Studies

"A model of scholarship. [Dudziak’s] work represents detailed archival research at its best."—-Paul Gordon Lauren, Human Rights Quarterly

"Mary Dudziak's sophisticated account of race, reform, and international relations in post-World War II America is an outstanding work that should help historians rethink the early Cold War era."—-David Farber, H-Net Reviews

From the Publisher

"Groundbreaking."

American Lawyer