Bartley gives a step-by-step account of opposition to school desegregation in each southern state during the 1950s and clarifies the attitudes underlying massive resistance by examining the roles played by such southern leaders as James F. Byrnes, Harry Flood Byrd, James O. Eastland, Orval E. Faubus, Claude Pepper, Estes Kefauver, Richard B. Russell, Herman Talmadge, "Big Jim" Folsom, and Earl K. Long. He also closely analyzes the attitudes of the Eisenhower administration and national leaders towards the South and explores the activities of the Citizens' Councils, the Ku Klux Klan, and other local groups that emerged to defend "the southern way of life." His closing "Critical Essay on Authorities" still forms an excellent guide to primary and secondary sources on opposition to Brown v. Board of Education.