and wardens: “It never occurred to menthat blacks would hold such jobs andntreat other blacks in such a manner.”nThe harshest lessons came in Washingtonnduring the summer of 1968,nshortly after King’s assassination, andntook the form of challenges to Abernathy’snnaive and endearing faith in thengoodness of his fellow creatures. Kingnhad planned, and Abernathy carriednout, a project called Resurrection City:nhe leased space in the Washington mallnand erected a tent city, in which poornpeople of mixed race and ethnicitynwere to “live together in peace andnmutual respect” for a few weeks, thusnsimultaneously impressing Congressnwith the plight of the poor and settingnup a “model for the rest of the nation.”nBut things did not work out that way.nFirst, a group of young blacks fromnChicago and Detroit appeared, formedna gang, and set up a “protection business.”nThen it turned out that thendiverse groups — whites, blacks, Hispanics,nIndians — flatly refused to benintegrated. Even in that mini-village,n”They not only preferred to live innseparate groups, they insisted upon it.”nResurrection City ended as a fiasco,nevoking no government response. AndnAbernathy came to a startling realization—n”A good many people in governmentnwere quite happy with thenstatus quo. They liked the idea of anhuge, economically dependent population.nThe fact that there were thirdgenerationnwelfare families pleasednthem.”nAbernathy headed the SCLC forneight more years, but for practicalnpurposes the movement (and thenbook) was over. As for the book, it hasnbeen criticized for its comments aboutnMartin Luther King’s sexual prowess,nbut that is a tangential matter thatnsimply sets the record straight in a quietnway. As for the movement, it did helpnbring about a better South, for blacksnand whites alike; and middle- and upper-classnblacks elsewhere are perhapsnbetter off. For the teeming masses,nhowever, the urbanislums were alreadynbecoming a hell, and what the civilnrights movement did for them was tonprompt paternalistic legislation thatnmade their hell permanent.nForrest McDonald is a professor ofnhistory at the University of Alabamanin Tuscaloosa.nLarge Canvas, LongnReachnby Fred ChappellnSoldier’s Joynby Madison Smartt BellnNew York: Ticknor and Fields;n465 pp., $19.95nMadison Smartt Bell has a penchantnfor keeping his fictionnmysterious at its deepest core. ThenBRIEF MENTIONSnprotagonist of his 1985 novel. Waitingnfor the End of the World, is a fellowncalled Larkin who is out to destroynNew York City for no reason a readerncan ever discern. The willful wackosnwho give The Washington Square Ensemblen(1983) its title have individualndesigns and schedules which arenbrought to light only fitfully. Bell’snfinest work so far is a collection. Zerondb and Other Stories (1987), in whichntwo of the best stories, “The Structurenand Meaning of Dormitory and FoodnServices” and “I Love NY,” are con-nNEW INDIVIDUALIST REVIEW, edited by Ralph Raico, et alnIndianapolis: Liberty Press; 991 pp., $14.00nThe editors at Liberty Press, who take the long view of things, continue to issuenhandsome, durable reprints of conservative classics—at prices recalling those ofnthe 1960’s. Here they’ve collected all the issues of the ‘New IndividualistnReview. This little journal, which appeared from 1961-1968 and had such anheavy impact on America, was the creation of students at the University ofnChicago. Professors Richard M. Weaver, F.A. Hayek, and Milton Friedmannmade up the journal’s first advisory board and contributed articles.nOver its life the Review printed seminal writing on free market andnconservative topics by remarkably mature students and by Russell Kirk, Ludwignvon Mises, George Stigler, Benjamin Rogge, and other already established men.nWhat characterized the Review writers was their rigor of thought and concernnfor principles, features that coexist naturally. The result is that their articles are anvalid and contemporary for today, especially when so much of what passes fornconservative discussion becomes quickly dated because the writers let principlesntrail far behind their preoccupation with the nuts and bolts of public policy.n—]ames B. GravesnTHE SOUTHERN TRADITION AT BAY: A HISTORY OFnPOSTBELLUM THOUGHT by Richard M. Weaver, edited bynGeorge Gore and M.E. Bradford; Chicago and Washington, DC:nRegnery Gateway; 380 pp., $21.95 (hardcover) $11.95 (paper)nI was a still young man when The Southern Tradition at Bay first appeared inn1968. Reading it was for me a sustained intellectual transport. I recall at the timenwishing my paternal grandmother were still living so I could tell her I had foundnproof—and something more — of all she’d seen and heard and told me of herngirlhood in Alabama, then recovering from those violations collectively knownnas “Reconstruction.”nThis book is Richard Weaver’s vindication of the 19th-century South, not sonmuch as a region but as the legitimate bearer of the old European culture innAmerica—“the last non-materialist civilization in the Western world,” as henputs it. Weaver’s thrust is radical and revolutionary, in the good sense of thosenwords: going to the roots of our present crises and woes and, by steady referencento principles, overturning encrusted notions that have inflicted those woes.n”And the challenge,” says Weaver, “is to save the human spirit by re-creating annon-materialist society. Only this can save us from a future of nihilism.”nFor those people who habitually swear by Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequencesnbut affect to dismiss The Southern Tradition as a product merely of sectionalntouchiness: though published posthumously, this latter title was Weaver’s firstnand basic book, a revision of his 1943 doctoral thesis. Ideas is largely annextended commentary on The Southern Tradition, without the overtly Southernnreferences. Thus to reject the parent but accept the child is (to changenfigures) something like an attempt to throw out your cake and eat it too.n—James B. GravesnnnAPRIL 1990/35n