Days of Hope

“Sullivan effectively explores the campaigns to abolish the poll tax, build industrial unions, win protections for Southern tenant farmers and sharecroppers, uphold the wartime prohibition on discrimination in wartime industries and register Southern black voters and democratize the South.” — Chicago Tribune

“Although the case for a racially progressive New Deal has been made before, . . . it has never been argued with more force or originality than in Days of Hope. . . . In arguing that the Southern civil rights struggle from 1938 to 1948 yielded a distinctive era of progress, Days of Hope gives the prewar, wartime and postwar history of race and liberalism a coherence missing from most accounts. . . . Days of Hope does much to deepen our understanding of the civil rights movement and the New Deal. It is a testament to Sullivan’s boldness that she seeks not merely to illuminate the New Deal era but also to redefine it — and to a remarkable extent she succeeds.” — The Nation

“A splendid book. It inspires optimism rather than despair by reminding us that social justice is achieved, not simply through politicians and policy makers, but through grass-roots political mobilization." — Journal of American History

“Patricia Sullivan offers fresh perspectives on the strengths and limitations of the New Deal at the local and national levels, the changing complexion of the Democratic party, and the roles of those social activists determined to bring social and economic justice to a region not noted for either democracy or racial tolerance. Days of Hope is a graceful addition to New Deal, southern, and civil rights historiography.” — American Studies

“A first-rate narrative of New Deal liberalism and its aftermath from 1933 to 1948. Her study breaks new ground in an important way by pushing “the start” of the Civil Rights movement back to the 1930s, long before the traditional date of 1954.” — Alabama Review

“In its attention to the fluidity, radical potential, and reservoir of dissent which existed beneath a rigged political system, Sullivan’s book is a compelling challenge to easy generalizations about the Solid South. Its greatest contribution is the chronicling of Southerners who knew that their region had to change from within and knew that federal intervention was also a prerequisite, a lesson which still resonates today.” — Southern Changes

“Days of Hope instructs us to reach for deeper understandings of our nation’s history. It turns our minds' eyes counter-clockwise, circling the story of the two races into their bitter southern roots. It adjusts our minds' lenses, forcing our focus onto serious people rising amidst seminal events to confront the nation: Palmer Weber, Charles Houston, Ella Baker, Clark Foreman, Henry Wallace, Virginia Durr, Osceola McKaine. It demands our attention.” — Bob Moses, SNCC Field Secretary, Mississippi, 1961–65

“Days of Hope skillfully illuminates the period of the '30s and '40s that preceded and produced the better known civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s. The struggles of these black and white activists to create a progressive, interracial coalition have much to teach us today.” — Julian Bond

“At last, we have some heroes for a dark time. Patricia Sullivan’s compelling narrative about the gallant cohort of black and white activists who fought to bring the New Deal to the Old South shows us how much we lost when the domestic Cold War of the 1940s and 1950s destroyed the promising movement for a democratic solution to that region’s racial and economic woes.” — Ellen Schrecker, author of No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities

“Patricia Sullivan’s book casts bright light upon an often overlooked but important phase in the struggle for racial equality. It is a rich and indispensable work.” — William Styron