White Flight

Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism

By: Kevin M. Kruse

Narrated by: Aaron Williamson

During the civil rights era, Atlanta thought of itself as "The City Too Busy to Hate," a rare place in the South where the races lived and thrived together. Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, however, so many whites fled the city for the suburbs that Atlanta earned a new nickname: "The City Too Busy Moving to Hate."

In this reappraisal of racial politics in modern America, Kevin Kruse explains the causes and consequences of "white flight" in Atlanta and elsewhere. Seeking to understand segregationists on their own terms, White Flight moves past simple stereotypes to explore the meaning of white resistance. In the end, Kruse finds that segregationist resistance, which failed to stop the civil rights movement, nevertheless managed to preserve the world of segregation and even perfect it in subtler and stronger forms.

Challenging the conventional wisdom that white flight meant nothing more than a literal movement of whites to the suburbs, this book argues that it represented a more important transformation in the political ideology of those involved. In a provocative revision of postwar American history, Kruse demonstrates that traditional elements of modern conservatism, such as hostility to the federal government and faith in free enterprise, underwent important transformations during the postwar struggle over segregation.

©2005 Princeton University Press (P)2019 Tantor

Political correctness

I love when it was more acceptable to state the obvious. People and their politicians were allowed to speak the truth. The last 15 years seems like we’re walking on egg shells, instead of getting to the root of the problems.

Everyone should read this

An in depth look at the history of American Conservatism and our Nation's history. Excellent linear explanation of how we got to where we are today.

Indeed

This might be half as long if the author removed every time they started a sentence with "indeed..." or "to be sure..."

Atlanta's solution to Integration: White Flight

The causes and consequences of the rise of Atlanta White suburbs are elucidated in this detailed analysis of a demographic phenomenon that had a profound impact on the southern political landscape. This crisply told story of the rise of the southern Republican Party due to White Flight to the Atlanta suburbs reverberates in our Trumpian world. Many Atlanta suburbanites are realizing that you to need to be carefull what you wish for and a gradual but profound shift is taking hold in the voting booths throughout the conservative districts of suburban Atlanta.

Excellent

Excellent history. Epilogue really brings home the story to the present day. today. Nicely performed, as well.