Civil War on Race Street

Catalyzed by the arrival of freedom riders in 1962, the movement in Cambridge expanded in 1963 and 1964 under the leadership of Gloria Richardson, one of the most prominent (and one of the few female) civil rights leaders in the nation. In the years after her departure from Cambridge, the movement went into decline until 1967, when it underwent a brief revival that culminated with a riot allegedly incited by black power spokesman H. Rap Brown. In the wake of the riot, blacks and whites in Cambridge sought to rebuild their city and return to a politics of moderation. However, Spiro Agnew, then governor of Maryland, used the riot to advance his political career and the fortunes of the New Right, thereby garnering the attention of the public (as well as Richard Nixon) and achieving the vice-presidency in 1968. At the same time, H. Rap Brown saw his influence and that of the civil rights movement decline.

In addition to providing valuable insights into Richardson and Agnew, this study is one of the few to examine a community in a "border" state. Levy demonstrates that the goals of the movement were not universal, that strategies underwent constant political and social change, and that the impact on the micro level was not as clean and immediate as historians would have us believe.