The civil rights movement is closely linked to civil disobedience, with activists rejecting coercion and appealing to the majority's principles while willingly facing legal consequences to demand essential reforms. Their dedication to the law, civility, and democracy shaped a model for racial justice activism and established the framework for liberal civil disobedience philosophies. This book explores the development of this influential narrative within the civil rights movement, highlighting its connection to a broader story of black protest intertwined with white supremacy. Liberal political theorists, whose ideas have influenced scholarship for decades, viewed civil disobedience through a "white state" lens, assuming the constitutional order's legitimacy and prioritizing stability while centering white citizens as the normative ideal. They framed racial injustice as a limited issue, largely resolved. In contrast, this work utilizes historical and archival evidence to illustrate how civil rights activists, alongside global anticolonial movements, embraced civil disobedience as a means of decolonization, seeking to dismantle and transform a deeply entrenched racial order. To uncover this powerful alternative narrative, a different theoretical perspective is necessary—one that recognizes activists as engaged in the creative process of political theorizing.
