Steven F. Lawson (Ph.D., Columbia University) is Professor Emeritus of History at Rutgers University. His research interests include U.S. politics since 1945 and the history of the civil rights movement, with a particular focus on black politics and the interplay between civil rights and political culture in the mid-twentieth century. He is the author of many works including Running for Freedom: Civil Rights and Black Politics in America since 1941, Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944-1969, and In Pursuit of Power: Southern Blacks and Electoral Politics, 1965-1982.