“An excellent (and prize-winning) book analyzing the civil rights struggle in Birmingham during the 1950s and 1960s. . . . Future analyses of the civil rights struggle in Birmingham will begin with [Eskew’s] detailed and insightful study of this pivotal city.” — American Historical Review
“A sophisticated and engaging piece of scholarship, But for Birmingham ranks alongside the best of a new wave of histories which skillfully investigate the relationship between the national, regional and local forces which fashioned the Southern freedom struggle.” — American Studies
“A trenchant account of the Birmingham civil rights movement. . . . Eskew insightfully explores the broader historical context of the confrontations between nonviolent demonstrators mobilized by King’s associates in the SCLC and Birmingham police under the commissioner of public safety T. Eugene 'Bull' Connor.” — Journal of American History
“A balanced and compelling study. . . . By examining the relationship between the local struggles and the national civil rights movement in Birmingham, Glenn Eskew sheds new light on the meaning and impact of both.” — Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
“Eskew’s thorough research and judicious interpretation place But for Birmingham in the first rank of the many Civil Rights monographs now appearing. It is one book for which the evaluation 'essential reading' is appropriate.” — August Meier, general editor, Blacks in the New World
“A well-documented, objective analysis, this volume deserves a prominent place in any library of the civil rights movement.” — Publishers Weekly
“A much-needed analysis of the Civil Rights movement in the pivotal city of Birmingham . . . a valuable contribution to the growing body of scholarship on grass-roots civil rights protest . . . [and] a valuable addition to the growing scholarship on the evolution of African American social protest in modern America.” — North Carolina Historical Review
“History at its best. . . . A work of scholarship that provokes one to rethink what one knows, to reconsider what one believes.” — Georgia Historical Quarterly
“Eskew’s study provides a detailed and comprehensive exploration of the Civil Rights protest era in Birmingham. In my opinion, it is by far the best such analysis of Birmingham available anywhere.” — James C. Cobb, University of Georgia
