Histories of the American Civil Rights movement of the mid-20th century understandably tend to focus on the conflict's primary actors, whether it's the courageous African-American leadership embodied by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., or the vitriolic opposition represented by segregationists such as Bull Connor or George Wallace. Yet such a Manichean view of this revolution inevitably treats the South's vast white majority as mere spectators either hissing their racist displeasure from the sidelines (mostly) or occasionally nodding in silent assent (the "good ones").

The problem with the word "racist," as Jason Sokol points out early in There Goes My Everything, is that it doesn't adequately explain the complexities of many whites' perspectives on race — perspectives as invisibly fundamental to them as the air they breathed — or convey the depth of the hatred others really did feel and, in some cases, acted upon. Sokol isn't interested in putting whites on trial — as he points out, that would be impossible in any case, so diverse and inconstant were the responses of individuals throughout the era and the region. Rather, the author seeks no more and no less than to catalog these manifold reactions, understand their reasons and implications, and thereby enable a more nuanced view of history and its present repercussions — not the least of which was the ascendancy of the Republican party in the South, supported by whites who felt betrayed by the Democrats on whose watch they thought integration occurred.

The degree to which the Civil Rights movement divided whites against themselves has largely been forgotten. For example, most of the invectives spewed (and rocks thrown) during the integration of New Orleans' schools were toward white parents who refused to boycott them. While some whites did harbor paranoid fears that civil rights for blacks would lead to "white slavery," many more were genuinely startled to find that blacks whom they'd interacted with for years were dissatisfied with "their place" — paternalistically assuming that "their Negroes" were happy and well-cared for and that Dr. King's movement was not home-grown but the work of meddling Northerners and — more important — opportunistic Communists. History was not on their side, of course. But history is never as simple as black and white.

-Chris Parris-Lamb