Most histories of the Civil Rights Movement start with all the players in place - among them organized groups of African Americans, White Citizens' Councils, nervous politicians, and religious leaders struggling to find the right course. Anderson, using Jesuit archival material that still remains off-limits to other scholars, takes up the historical moment right before that, when small groups of Black and White Catholics began efforts to desegregate the New Orleans archdiocese, and the Society of Jesus began, in fits and starts, to integrate quietly the New Orleans Province.