In 2000 the National Park Service published a theme study titled "Racial Desegregation in Public Education in the United States." Authorized by Congress, the study surveyed sites across the country "that best exemplify and illustrate the historical movement to provide for a racially nondiscriminatory education." 1 Two of the sites investigated were the George W. Watkins School and the New Kent School, both located in rural New Kent County, Virginia. In 1964, these two schools, one black and one white, set the stage for what would be one of the most important U.S. Supreme Court decisions since Brown v. the Board of Education.

a witty story of efforts to mentor the young and impulsive Dolores Huerta, set pieces like the tale of a priest zooming around on a motorcycle, tense narratives about meetings with angry groups in dank shacks, actual transcripts of Ross's trainings, and more. The absence of such stories does not detract from the importance of Thompson's work, but I do worry that it limits the audience of the book to those seeking information rather than those seeking a gripping tale of organizing in the sometimes raging whitewater of action and often tedious work of voter registration.This book is a must read for anyone interested in the history of organizing in America. America's Social Arsonist is surprisingly the only significant description of this quiet giant of organizing in California, someone who almost single-handedly changed the situation of oppressed Mexican Americans through his early work in the CSO and his later work supporting Chavez in the UFW.

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