From Direct Action to Affirmative Action

Paul D. Moreno

The nature of race-based employment discrimination and the proper remedy for it continue to be a topic of much - and often heated - public debate. Scarce, however, is the kind of dispassionate scholarly treatment that lends a helpful long-range perspective on the matter. Historian Paul Moreno here fills that need in the first analysis of affirmative action that goes back to its beginnings.

In a clear and methodical fashion, he retraces the surprisingly long and sometimes circuitous route of legal and political responses to racial bias in America's workplaces. From Direct Action to Affirmative Action makes clear that the push for preferential employment practices originated decades before 1964. By casting the development of modern national policy in a broader historical context, it brings depth and nuance to an understanding of this important area of civil rights.