Book Review

Richard C. Cortner and James T. Patterson have written valuable but problematical accounts of key civil rights lawsuits. In Civil Rights and Public Accommodations, Cortner deals with the Heart of Atlanta v. United States and Katzenbach v. McClung cases, which tested the constitutionality of the public accommodations sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In his book on Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Patterson discusses the background and ramifications of the landmark case in the history of school desegregation.	1
Cortner explains that Congress justified its ban on racial discrimination in public accommodations by appealing to the commerce clause of the Constitution rather than to the equal protection clause. Congress did so because the Supreme Court had previously given the federal government wide latitude in removing burdens on interstate commerce. The Court had also held that the equal protection clause only prohibited discrimination by states and could not be used to prohibit discrimination by private individuals.	2
The Civil Rights Act inevitably was challenged by people who believed they had a basic right to cater to whatever clientele they chose. One such person was Moreton Rolleston, an owner of the Heart of Atlanta Motel. Another was Ollie McClung, the owner of Ollie's Barbecue in Birmingham. They were the defendants in lawsuits that eventually went to the Supreme Court.	3
Cortner provides a detailed account of these cases. His book is thoroughly researched and clearly written, and it works toward judicious conclusions. In many respects it is a model monograph. But Cortner is more skilled in legal analysis and narrative than in synthesis. The arguments before the district courts were repeated before the Supreme Court, and it is tedious to read what each of the nine justices (and many of their clerks) thought about the legal points at issue.	4
Cortner astutely notes that Congress and the Court reduced the likelihood of massive resistance by basing the prohibition of discrimination on the commerce clause, a clause that had been interpreted expansively ever since John Marshall's opinion in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) and especially since the judicial revolution of 1937. There were pockets of resistance to the new civil rights law, but in most places discrimination in public accommodations ended quickly.	5
James T. Patterson's book on Brown v. Board of Education covers familiar territory but does so with pace, style, and insight. It is especially good in describing the attitudes, hopes, and fears of people on both sides of the desegregation battles of the 1950s. Patterson departs somewhat from the conventional wisdom in that he slights the constitutional and educational arguments of segregationists and instead emphasizes their fear that school desegregation eventually would lead to widespread interracial dating and marriage.	6
While stressing the importance of that fear, Patterson does not come to grips with the legal argument that the Brown Court abused its judicial power. Although the subtitle of his book mentions the troubled legacy of Brown, Patterson gives little attention to the problematic aspects of having the equal protection clause mean whatever the Supreme Court thinks the times require.	. . .