Dissent in Wichita
Subtitle: the Civil Rights Movement in the Midwest, 1954-72
By: Gretchen Cassel Eick.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 312
Subjects: Lewis, Chester I.; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People -- Biography.; African Americans -- Civil rights -- Kansas -- Wichita -- History -- 20th century.; Civil rights movements -- Kansas -- Wichita -- History -- 20th century.; Civil rights movements -- United States -- History -- 20th century.; Wichita (Kan.) -- Race relations.; United States -- Race relations.
Description: "On a hot summer evening in 1958, a group of African American students in Wichita, Kansas, quietly entered Dockum's Drug Store and sat down at the whites-only counter. This was the beginning of the first sustained, successful student sit-in of the modern civil rights movement, instigated in violation of the national NAACP's instructions.".

"Dissent in Wichita traces the contours of race relations and black activism in this unexpected locus of the civil rights movement. Based on interviews with more than eighty participants in and observers of Wichita's civil rights struggles, this powerful study hones in on the work of black and white local activists, setting their efforts in the context of anticommunism, FBI operations against black nationalists, and the civil rights policies of administrations from Eisenhower through Nixon.".

"Through her close study of events in Wichita, Eick reveals the civil rights movement as a national, not a southern, phenomenon. She focuses particularly on Chester I. Lewis, Jr., a key figure in the local as well as the national NAACP. Lewis initiated one of the earliest investigations of de facto school desegregation by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and successfully challenged employment discrimination in the nation's largest aircraft industries."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [283]-294) and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Preface ix; title: Acknowledgments xiii; title: 1. The Dockum Sit-In 1; title: 2. The Context 12; title: 3. The Wichita NAACP 34; title: 4. Black and White Together 53; title: 5. Taking on the Giants: Employment, Public Accommodations,; title: and Fair Housing 66; title: 6. Chester Lewis's National Arena in 1964 83; title: 7. The Gap Widens 98; title: 8. Access and Alienation i18; title: 9. Things Fall Apart, 1968 145; title: lo. The Schools: A Bittersweet Victory 163; title: n. Blooming and Fading 184; title: Conclusion 207; title: Epilogue 229; title: Notes 233; title: Bibliography 283; title: Index 295.