America seems to have little sense of how the civil rights movement actually played into Southern politics over the remainder of the twentieth century. The common vision is a monolithic struggle between heroes and villains, depicted literally and figuratively in black and white. Unfortunately, this conception provides an incomplete explanation for subsequent progress in the Southern political system.

This book reveals that, amid all the heroic history of that time, there is a fascinating story of "stealth reconstruction"—i.e., the unheroic, quiet, practical, biracial work of some white politicians and black leaders, a story untold and unknown until now.