America's Peacemakers

In this second, expanded edition of Resolving Racial Conflict: The Community Relations Service and Civil Rights, 1964-1989, Grande Lum continues Bertram Levine's excellent scholarship, adding what has transpired over the last twenty-five years for the Community Relations Service (CRS) of the U.S. Department of Justice. That the Trump administration has sought to eliminate CRS gives this book increased urgency and relevance. In 2009 the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act substantially altered CRS's jurisdiction for the first time since its founding. In addition to race, color, and national origin, CRS began focusing on gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, and disability. Applying its community dispute resolution techniques to these new categories was a historic change for CRS, and Lum's documentation of this expanded jurisdiction provides insight into the progression of civil rights.