Although perched between Watts and Oakland, Seaside, California in the 1960s may well have been worlds away. Race riots and backlash never consumed this diverse military community. Instead, remembers one resident, Seaside

Carol Lynn McKibben's Racial Beachhead tells the story of how and why Seaside, defying state and nationwide trends, peacefully integrated during the mid-twentieth century. Crucial to Seaside's success was its close association with the military and with federal government.

Nearby Army base Fort Ord (established 1917), argues McKibben, served as a powerful ally and successful model of integration for Seaside, through institutional mandates for integration and a “critical mass” (5) of diverse and inclusive military families. Working together, Seaside's multiracial families built a city defined by its progressive city politics and, as McKibben observes, welcoming residents. Seaside thus complicates nearby urban histories of racial tensions, white flight, and segregated suburbs.

McKibben, public historian for the City of Seaside and co-coordinator of the public history major at Stanford University, has assembled a wealth of local records and oral histories to illuminate the community's history. Though regionally stigmatized by its military and multiracial associations, Seaside peacefully integrated, most assertively in the 1950s and 1960s. McKibben deftly navigates the tensions between outside opinions and local realities throughout her six chapters.

First planned as a subdivision of Monterey in 1888, Seaside in the early twentieth century consisted of predominantly white, middle-class residents. But, as chapter 1 details, Fort Ord's establishment soon marginalized Seaside through its military associations and, consequently, growing minority population. After the integration of the armed services in 1948, and subsequent military efforts to station multiracial families at Fort Ord, Seaside became a minority destination. Military and middle-class Asian, black, white, Hispanic, and interracial families united to build a politically progressive town. In 1954, the community came together across racial boundaries to officially incorporate Seaside.

Chapters 3 and 4 further detail how on-base integration impacted Seaside throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Fort Ord's environment of inclusion, argues McKibben, created possibilities for diverse community events (from Filipino pageants to Italian Santa Rosalia festivals), multiracial city politics, urban renewal and nonviolent school integration. Into the 1970s and 1980s, Seaside witnessed the building of black political power that confronted rising crime and drug problems. Multiracial, middle-class coalitions came together to combat crime and offer alternatives for local youth. McKibben's final chapter grapples with the legacy of Fort Ord's 1993 closure. As the military left, hotels and golf courses arrived. Amid an emerging service economy, Seaside's demographics shifted, and the community welcomed increasing numbers of Latinos.

Racial Beachhead is at its strongest when examining nodes of military policy and civil rights activism. For instance, Seaside's urban redevelopment underscores positive federal policies, local activism and the community's divergence from broader trends. Amid nationwide efforts at urban renewal, a 1963 military mandate for fair housing for civilians, and growing demand for housing as Fort Ord grew during the Vietnam War, the Seaside Redevelopment Agency tackled racism in the local housing market. Unlike renewal projects in Oakland and Los Angeles, Seaside's initiative was explicitly integrated and emphasized refurbishment over removal.

This book will find eager readers among urban, community, military and civil rights historians, as well as those more generally interested in northern California's history. McKibben does well to address both audiences, though sections detailing city politics and festivals want for more critical analysis. Racial Beachhead tells an inspiring and triumphal story of how one town integrated, against the odds, as it were. However, the issue of why Seaside defied broader trends is less clear. In her sixth chapter, McKibben offers the explanation of a progressive, worldly military identity; elsewhere, she highlights the positive, multiracial ethos of Seaside. Some readers may wonder if this explanation is too simple, glossing over class, gender politics, and everyday experiences of integration in favor of community consensus. Complicating the narrative would deepen, rather than undermine, an already compelling history.

Overall, Racial Beachhead offers a fascinating alternative narrative of racial politics. McKibben provides a crucial addition to recent work on the long, wide civil rights movement, coalition building, and urban politics in twentieth-century California. Racial Beachhead's greatest contribution is its focus on a small, but integrated, military community, enriching our understanding of the American West in the mid-twentieth century.