| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 89.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Dissent in Wichita: The Civil Rights Movement in the Midwest, 1954-72. By Gretchen Cassel Eick. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001. xvi, 312 pp. $39.95, ISBN 0-252-02683-7.)

Pick up any history of the civil rights movement, and you will not find Wichita in the index. This book addresses that omission. When this reviewer began reading it, he at first doubted that the omission needed addressing, at least at such length. The list of potential subjects for local studies of this kind is a long one, and the case for Wichita, a mid-sized city in Kansas with a black population that never exceeded 10 percent, does not appear obvious. 1

Much of the book reveals a familiar story. In Wichita, as in towns and cities across America, African Americans protested against job discrimination, agitated for a fair housing law, and conducted a lengthy and tortuous campaign to bring about integrated schools. In Wichita, too, black activism went through a 'civil rights' phase followed by a 'black power' phase. The city suffered a riot in 1967, acquired an antipoverty program racked by the usual controversies, and saw a highly charged 'political' trial, the case of the 'Wichita Nine.' None of that is surprising or exceptional. It is heartening to learn that school integration was not followed by resegregation, but the relatively small size of the black population provides a rather straightforward explanation. . . .

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