The Rebel in the Red Jeep: Ken Hechler's Life in West Virginia Politics by Carter Taylor Seaton (review)

Abstract

the most integrated school in the nation. The work also situates the case study within a broader national narrative. This strength is a particular asset during the work’s final chapters which trace West Charlotte’s resegregation and institutional decline amidst the backdrop of the 1980s conservative resurgence. Unfortunately, Grundy often gets distracted in this national narrative and leaves readers grasping for a more complex understanding of West Charlotte itself. This problem is compounded by the work’s longer chronology. Grundy analyzed a period of roughly seventy-five years in less than two hundred pages. While impressive, this ultimately hindered Grundy’s ability to dig deeply enough in her analysis. As a work of scholarly inquiry seeking to contribute to the robust historiography on the Civil Rights Movement, Grundy struggled in a few critical areas. Throughout the study, Grundy overly relies on a number of oral histories she conducted. While oral histories are undeniably a rich primary source, the difficulties of oral history demand that they be studied in tandem with a plethora of other sources. Most of the individuals interviewed for the first section of the book were seventy to eighty years old and reminiscing about their elementary-school experience at West Charlotte. This is particularly a problem when she allows students to speak through rose-colored glasses about their experience in segregated schools, with little interpretation. Grundy addresses this issue in her methodology section, but this discussion should have been more overt throughout her analysis. Grundy’s work will not surprise students of the Civil Rights Movement or the history of race in the United States. Yet her analysis of the complexity of busing, the evolution of rights rhetoric surrounding whites, the downfalls of urban-renewal programs, and even the internal segregation of integrated schools does an impeccable job making these scholarly discussions approachable to a broader audience. It also interprets them within a longer institutional chronology that assists readers in grasping the ongoing impact of historical decisions. Elisabeth Moore West Virginia University