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News and Stories

July 5, 2005

Historian writes book on Indy's "polite" civil rights protests

By Susan Guibert

Methods of political action employed by the black community of Indianapolis in the 20^th century to secure civil rights is the focus of a new book written by Richard B. Pierce, a historian at the University of Notre Dame.

Published by Indiana University Press, "Polite Protest: The Political Economy of Race in Indianapolis, 1920-1970" chronicles the protest methods used by blacks in Indianapolis that set the city apart from its such northern cousins as Chicago, Milwaukee and Detroit.

Pierce describes the ways in which black leaders achieved reform and advancement by working with whites inside the existing power structures.  Protracted negotiations, interracial coalitions, petitions and legal challenge were the methods of "polite" protest that helped Indianapolis' citizens - black and white - create their own patterns and platforms of race relations in the public and cultural spheres.

A member of the Notre Dame faculty since 1996, Pierce specializes in African-American, urban and civil rights history, and examines social and political protest in urban environments.  He is the Carl E. Koch Jr. Assistant Professor of History, chair of the Africana studies department and a faculty fellow in Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.

View the original press release at News and Information