Shortly after the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Ku Klux Klan--determined to keep segregation as the way of life inĀ Alabama--staged a resurgence, and the strong-armed leadership of governor George C. Wallace, who defiedĀ the new civil rights laws, empowered the Klan's most violent members. As Wallace's power grew, however, blacks began fighting back in the courthouses and schoolhouses, as did young southern lawyers like Charles "Chuck" Morgan, who became the ACLU's southern director; Morris Dees, who cofounded the Southern Poverty Law Center; and Bill Baxley, Alabama attorney general, who successfully prosecuted the bomber of Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and legally halted some of Wallace's agencies designed to slow down integration.
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Fighting the Devil in Dixie is the first book to tell this story in full, from the Klan's kidnappings, bombings, and murders of the 1950s to Wallace running for his fourth term as governor in the early 1980s, asking forgiveness and winning with the black vote.