The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 93, July 1989 - April, 1990 Page: 420

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

gration in Dallas. To avoid riots or other potential confrontations, the
city's oligarchy dictated the terms of integration to black leaders and
mandated that they control the direct action tactics of more militant or-
ganizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
Schutze also charges that by complying with the oligarchy and prevent-
ing the violent confrontations that other cities throughout the nation
experienced, black leadership in Dallas undermined the potential of
Dallas's black community to use the threat of violence to bargain for
more substantial political and economic gains. Thus, race relations in
Dallas has not moved beyond symbolic tokenism and in 1989, blacks in
Dallas are still struggling to achieve real political and economic power.
In light of the recent city charter revision battle in Dallas for single-
member, city council districts to replace the vestiges of the at-large sys-
tem once dominated by the oligarchy, Schutze's book is both timely and
enlightening. But his charges are suspect because of the lack of docu-
mentation of his sources. Although he has used the methods of an his-
torian and traced the development of racial politics in Dallas, he has
failed to support his book with the appropriate footnotes that would
substantiate his charges. Anyone who is familiar with the resources
available on black history in Dallas will recognize the sources that
Schutze has used even without the documentation. Easily recognizable
is the information from sources in the Texas-Dallas Collection of the
Dallas Public Library as well as information from the Dallas County
Freedmen's Bureau records. But Schutze often stretches his credibility
by quoting people and citing events without the supporting docu-
mentation. As a result, one has to wonder what is fact in the book and
how much is just Schutze's own personal observations?
Overall the book provides interesting reading on a neglected aspect
of Dallas history. It is just unfortunate that it was written in a jour-
nalistic style.
University of Texas at Arlington W. MARVIN DULANEY
Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South. By Grady McWhiney. Pro-
logue by Forrest McDonald. (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama
Press, 1988. Pp. xliii+29o. Preface, prologue, illustrations, notes,
appendix, index. $29.95.)
Grady McWhiney's Cracker Culture is the first book-length presenta-
tion of the recent, controversial Celtic interpretation of southern his-
tory. Set forth over the last decade in shorter pieces by McWhiney,
often in collaboration with Forrest McDonald, among others, this inter-

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