Chapter 1: Introduction
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the fight against racial segregation and for equal participation in civic life for Black Americans raged across the 13 states of the old Confederacy. Many of the scenes from this era form our immediate picture of the Civil Rights struggle: the Little Rock Nine, the Montgomery bus boycott, the Birmingham church bombing. But agitation in the cause of racial equality took place in northern cities during this time as well, including in Chicago. There, the organizations which participated were those that originated to support the fight in the south -- but eventually turned their attention to local injustices.
