2024 Outstanding Book Award, National Association for Ethnic Studies 2025 Honorable Mention, Norris & Carol Hundley Award, Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association 2025 The Ambassador Julian Nava Best Ethnic Studies Book, International Latino Book Awards A multiracial history of civil rights coalitions beyond the farm worker movement in twentieth-century Bakersfield, California. In Civil Rights in Bakersfield, Oliver Rosales uncovers the role of the multiracial west in shaping the course of US civil rights history. Focusing on Bakersfield, one of the few sizable cities within California's Central Valley for much of the twentieth century in a region most commonly known as a bastion of political conservatism, oil, and industrial agriculture, Rosales documents how multiracial coalitions emerged to challenge histories of racial segregation and discrimination. He recounts how the region was home to both the historic farm worker movement, led by CEsar ChAvez, Dolores Huerta, and Larry Itliong, and also a robust multiracial civil rights movement beyond the fields. This multiracial push for civil rights reform included struggles for fair housing, school integration, public health, media representation, and greater political representation for Black and Brown communities. In expanding on this history of multiracial activism, Rosales further explores the challenges activists faced in community organizing and how the legacies of coalition building contribute to ongoing activist efforts in the Central Valley of today.
Oliver A. Rosales is a professor of history at Bakersfield College.
Introduction 1. "A Laboratory of Races": Racial Segregation in Greater Bakersfield, 1870-1950 2. Civic Unity: Mexican Americans, African Americans, and Civil Rights Activism in Bakersfield, 1947-1964 3. "Maximum Feasible Participation" and Opposition: The War on Poverty in Kern County, 1964-1967 4. Agrarian Chicanismo: Jesus "Jess" Nieto and the Chicana/o Student Movement in Bakersfield 5. "Hoo-ray Gonzales!": Civil Rights Protest and Chicana/o Politics in Bakersfield, 1968-1974 6. Police Violence, Fair Media, Rural Health Care, and Civil Rights Activism in Greater Bakersfield 7. A New Battleground for Civil Rights: The Desegregation of the Bakersfield City School District, 1969-1984 Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Index
"[This book] contributes to the growing body of city-level social histories on the U.S. West, and it helps move scholarship on civil rights in California beyond CEsar ChAvez and farmworkers...Rosales convincingly uses the history of Bakersfield to shed light on both [multiracial civil rights activism and rural white conservatism]." - (Pacific Historical Review) "Rosales's work also suggests that for every gas station bigot, there was a coalition ready to fight back. This is a timely reminder. Hostilities toward immigrants, challenges to anti-poverty programs, and police violence against minority communities persist. In the postwar period, civil rights organizers in Bakersfield knew that these issues cut across race. What lessons can contemporary movements learn from the successes and failures of these coalitions?" - (California History) "Rosales offers a nuanced exploration of the Civil Rights Movement in Bakersfield, arguing that insufficient recognition of the various civil rights reforms that shaped the region has obscured the legacy of civil rights in the Central Valley...Rosales's analysis is crucial to demonstrating the importance of interracial coalitions in the midst of local and national opposition...Civil Rights in Bakersfield stands out for its interdisciplinary character and use of original methods." - (Journal of African American History) "A meticulously researched book...Civil Rights in Bakersfield is a tour de force not only in the field of Chicana/o studies but also US civil rights history. It is a requisite read for students and scholars interested in how multiracial activism at a local level contributed to the formation of larger movements." - (American Historical Review) "[This book is a] groundbreaking study, one that should be widely read, taught, praised, and celebrated." - (Western Historical Quarterly) "A tour de force." - (Amercan Historical Review)
