Fight Against Fear: Southern Jews and Black Civil Rights

by Clive Webb

In the uneasily shared history of Jews and blacks in America, the struggle for civil rights in the South may be the least understood episode. Fight against Fear is the first book to focus on Jews and African Americans in that remarkable place and time. Mindful of both communities' precarious and contradictory standings in the South, Clive Webb tells a complex story of resistance and complicity, conviction and apathy. Webb begins by ranging over the experiences of southern Jews up to the eve of the civil rights movement--from antebellum slaveowners to refugees who fled Hitler's Europe only to arrive in the Jim Crow South. He then shows how the historical burden of ambivalence between Jews and blacks weighed on such issues as school desegregation, the white massive resistance movement, and business boycotts and sit-ins. As many Jews grappled as never before with the ways they had become--and yet never could become--southerners, their empathy with African Americans translated into scattered, individual actions rather than any large-scale, organized alliance between the two groups. The reasons for this are clear, Webb says, once we get past the notion that the choices of the much larger, less conservative, and urban-centered Jewish populations of the North define those of all American Jews. To understand Jews in the South we must look at their particular their small numbers and wide distribution, denominational rifts, and well-founded anxiety over defying racial and class customs set by the region's white Protestant majority. For better or worse, we continue to define the history of Jews and blacks in America by its flash points. By setting aside emotions and shallow perceptions, Fight against Fear takes a substantial step toward giving these two communities the more open and evenhanded consideration their shared experiences demand.

307 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2001

About the author

Clive Webb is Professor of Modern American History at the University of Sussex in Brighton, England. He specialises in the history of race and ethnic relations in the United States and also, in recent years, the United Kingdom. Outside of the classroom, he spends as much time as possible roaming the Sussex countryside.

Reviews

[Charles Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a valuable reference work for me as well as a highly readable text that peeled back layers of the Vidalia onion that represents the complicated relationship between Southern Jews and blacks in the Civil Rights Era: both were targets of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizen’s Councils. Many readers of history will assume this is a history of which Southern Jews can be proud. In most instances it is not, because Southern Jews felt threatened and resentful of Jews from outside the South who involved themselves in working for black civil rights, especially the national defense agencies, like the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

One cannot ignore the relevance of a book like this in a year when the stance of American Jews—indeed, all Americans—toward the State of Israel is politicized and reported every day, as are the images of carnage in the Middle East. American Jews were just as divided geographically during the Civil Rights Era as contemporary American Jews are split over the relationship of the United States Government vis-à-vis the State of Israel. This thorough and scholarly examination of American Jews post-Holocaust may bring some readers added clarity about American Jews in present political moment.

This review is not an endorsement of amazon.com or any business owned by Jeff Bezos. Books for my reviews were checked out from a public library, purchased from a local brick-and-mortar book shop, or ordered from my favorite website for rare and out-of-print books.