“Invaluable to scholars of the era...readers will yearn for more of that author's warm, human voice.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Robert B. McKersie captures the essence of Chicago’s major problem—segregation. It is at the root of every problem faced by community leaders in the last 75 years. As one who lived through the years McKersie describes, I was surprised by how much I learned about the people and events I thought I knew.”—Donald S. Perkins, founder of The Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago
“A Decisive Decade is an informative, passionate, and readable book about the civil rights movement that exploded in Chicago soon after voting-rights proponents marched over a Selma, Alabama, bridge in 1965. Robert B. McKersie captures a movement that had an umbrella of discrimination claims—in housing, jobs, schools, and businesses. This hotbed of needs roused the interest of the author, a university professor who involved students in research on areas of civil rights. The author worked with many civil rights groups and had the respect of all. His involvements enabled him to write a factual book for now and posterity—for researchers, students, and all who love to read a great book.”—Dr. Norma R. Poinsett, former member of the board of trustees, Unitarian Universalist Association
"A fascinating account of a pivotal time in our history written from McKersie’s unique standpoint of, simultaneously, committed participant, observer, and scholar."—George P. Shultz, former U.S. secretary of state and Distinguished Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
“No one who knows Bob McKersie will be surprised by the combination of leadership, courage, personal integrity, commitment to justice, and analytical rigor that jump off the pages of A Decisive Decade. It is the Bob McKersie we so admire, for all these reasons. Those who didn’t know the author before reading this book will not only come to appreciate these attributes but also see the power of combining scholarship with activism and get a rich first-hand account of the civil rights struggles in this historic time and place.”—Thomas A. Kochan, George M. Bunker Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management
"Award-winning nonfiction author Robert B. McKersie (Society of Sloan Fellows Professor emeritus, MIT Sloan School of Management) presents A Decisive Decade: An Insider’s View of the Chicago Civil Rights Movement During the 1960s, an in-depth examination of how the civil rights movement transformed the Windy City, and its legacy for America as a whole. Chapters meticulously reconstruct key historical events, from Tim Black and the Motorola Campaign to the many marches of spring and summer 1965, to the campaign for open housing, to how the movement ultimately wound down with the decade, through efforts continue particularly in the university and the Unitarian church."--James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief, The Midwest Book Review
A Decisive Decade: An Insider’s View of the Chicago Civil Rights Movement during the 1960s provides an eyewitness account of the civil rights movement and the fight for equality in Chicago in the 1960s. It reminds us with stark detail that the fight for racial justice was then, as it is now, as much an issue of the North as one of the South.--Esta R. Bigler, ILR School, Cornell University
