Nothing better exemplifies Martin Luther King’s conviction about our fundamental interdependence than the writing of this book. First, thank you to the thousands of people, acknowledged and unacknowledged in these pages, who made and interpreted this movement for human rights and economic justice. I owe an equally great debt to all my interlocutors and readers who sharpened my interpretations and lent me their wisdom. The skilled librarians and archivists I met were invariably gracious and interested in this project, especially Dianne Ware, Charles Niles, and Gail Malmgreen. At Stanford University’s History Department, Clayborne Carson, George Fredrickson, David Kennedy, John McGreevy, Jim Tracy, and Stewart Burns all helped me sharpen my questions at early stages of research. Clay Carson’s scholarship, criticism, friendship, and stewardship of the King Papers Project has been invaluable. So has David Garrow’s pioneering work and the body of research materials he has gathered. Vincent Harding encouraged this effort and modeled the activist scholar, and Henry Hampton showed what a life of dedicated public education could be. So did three scholars and teachers without whose inspiration I would never have followed this path: Leona Fisher, Michael Foley, and Dorothy Brown.
This study would have been impossible without generous institutions willing to invest in my curiosity. I owe a special debt to the Social Science Research Council for financial support and for bringing me in contact with the luminaries of historical poverty research, especially Michael Katz, Tom Sugrue, Robin Kelley, and Alice O’Connor, inspirations and discerning critics all. Northwestern University’s Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research provided financial support and sage advice from Christopher Jencks, Rebecca Blank, and William Julius Wilson. Doug McAdam and all the participants in the NEH summer seminar on the 1960s championed my interest in media criticism and popular culture. At Smith College and the University of Massachusetts, my work benefited from the companionship and criticism of Carl Nightingale, Kevin Boyle, Leo Malley, Victoria Gettis, Jack Wilson, and Dan Horowitz.
Thanks to the University of Pennsylvania’s History Department, the Mellon Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation for supporting this and related projects. The International Center for Advanced Study at New York University under Tom Bender’s extraordinary leadership assembled a talented group of researchers interested in exploring spaces of insurgent citizenship. The ICAS seminars enriched this book and my urban knowledge immeasurably. All these institutions exposed me to wonderful colleagues, readers, and interlocutors: Dana Barron, Carole Browner, Michael Jones-Correa, Julian Wolpert, Rob Lieberman, Mary Lewis, Jordana Dym, Wendell Pritchett, Sumner Rosen, Frances Fox Piven, Richard Cloward, and Martha Biondi. Allen Hunter’s feedback surpasses all.
Here in North Carolina, I have found the most generous of readers in Walter Jackson, Bill Link, and Felicia Kornbluh, whose greenhouse of economic justice research has complemented my own. The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities provided an essential semester for writing in the stimulating and supportive company of Bill Freehling, Gordon Hylton, Roberta Culbertson, and Victoria Sanford. A million thanks to Kent Germany and Guian McKee at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, who opened my ears to the rich and bizarre world of presidential audiotapes. Recently, Michael Honey, Alice O’Connor, Kevin Boyle, Charles Payne, Jacqueline Rouse, and Robert Korstad all lent this project their invaluable eyes, ears, and constructive commentary.
I have been blessed with generous support for research assistants at Smith College and University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Their energy and enthusiasm for discovery continually freshened the well of this project: Kate Steinbeck, Stephanie Kendall, Gina Rourke, Sarah Burnett, Todd Pfeffer, Adam Arney, and Seth King. “Do I find you in good study?”
I am deeply grateful to the team at Penn Press for helping bring this ship into port. Peter Agree has been an ideal editor, patiently tutoring me in the intricacies of publishing. And I mean patiently. Series editors Thomas Sugrue and Michael Kazin each generously lent their time and prodigious insights. Jennifer Backer as copyeditor and Noreen O’Connor-Abel as project editor are exemplars of editorial precision and good humor. Finally, I cannot adequately express my gratitude to Grey Osterud. Grey knows better than anyone how to guide an author through mental storms to the calm eye, where we chisel away “all that is not elephant.”
Friends and family have sustained me by balancing the scholarly enterprise with their warmth, laughter, travails, and support. Thanks especially to my mother, Dorothy Jackson, who always knew I had found my “calling”; to my siblings Martha, Anne, Johnny, Joe, and Mary and their families; and to Kay and Thor Krogh. Finally thanks to those friends and stalwarts whose encouragement, music, and love of adventure made this project a joy to escape from and to come back to: Anne Dykers, Tracy Erwin, Bob and Stephanie Mignon, Ellen Bruno, Dean McComb, Mike Fleming, the Martin and Guild guitar companies, Sabrina Odessa, Laurie Ruth, Jose Mestre, Janet Benton, Maureen Gillespie, Shari and Otto Fineman, Clara Sumpf, Andrew Light, Kathy Franz, Rick Barton, Jamie Anderson, Sallie Reid, Steve Berman, Elizabeth Gosch, Etty Cohen, Andrew Krystal, and Doug Waldruff. A million thanks to you all.