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In the late 1930s and early 1940s, American liberals began to focus on race issues to a greater extent than ever before. Historians such as Glenda Gilmore and Doug Rossinow attribute this transformation in political philosophy to the influence of leftists and left-liberals. My book, Discovering the South, will examine the same process from a "middle" perspective, centering on white southern liberal Jonathan Daniels, who in the early 1940s served President Franklin Roosevelt as an important adviser on domestic race relations. Discovering the South will begin by retracing the most illuminating and formative parts of a 1937 tour of the South that Daniels undertook for his 1938 book, A Southerner Discovers the South. A third section will then examine Daniels's work in Washington and the broader discussions of race issues within the Democratic Party. The result will be an engaging narrative that sheds light on an important political realignment and black and white southerners' role in it.