Author: Bob Zellner
Publisher: NewSouth Books
ISBN: 1603061045
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
Even forty years after the civil rights movement, the transition from son and grandson of Klansmen to field secretary of SNCC seems quite a journey. In the early 1960s, when Bob Zellner’s professors and classmates at a small church school in Alabama thought he was crazy for even wanting to do research on civil rights, it was nothing short of remarkable. Now, in his long-awaited memoir, Zellner tells how one white Alabamian joined ranks with the black students who were sitting-in, marching, fighting, and sometimes dying to challenge the Southern “way of life” he had been raised on but rejected. Decades later, he is still protesting on behalf of social change and equal rights. Fortunately, he took the time, with co-author Constance Curry, to write down his memories and reflections. He was in all the campaigns and was close to all the major figures. He was beaten, arrested, and reviled by some but admired and revered by others. The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, winner of the 2009 Lillian Smith Book Award, is Bob Zellner’s larger-than-life story, and it was worth waiting for.
The Wrong Side of Murder Creek
Author: Bob Zellner
Publisher: NewSouth Books
ISBN: 1603061045
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
Even forty years after the civil rights movement, the transition from son and grandson of Klansmen to field secretary of SNCC seems quite a journey. In the early 1960s, when Bob Zellner’s professors and classmates at a small church school in Alabama thought he was crazy for even wanting to do research on civil rights, it was nothing short of remarkable. Now, in his long-awaited memoir, Zellner tells how one white Alabamian joined ranks with the black students who were sitting-in, marching, fighting, and sometimes dying to challenge the Southern “way of life” he had been raised on but rejected. Decades later, he is still protesting on behalf of social change and equal rights. Fortunately, he took the time, with co-author Constance Curry, to write down his memories and reflections. He was in all the campaigns and was close to all the major figures. He was beaten, arrested, and reviled by some but admired and revered by others. The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, winner of the 2009 Lillian Smith Book Award, is Bob Zellner’s larger-than-life story, and it was worth waiting for.
Publisher: NewSouth Books
ISBN: 1603061045
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
Even forty years after the civil rights movement, the transition from son and grandson of Klansmen to field secretary of SNCC seems quite a journey. In the early 1960s, when Bob Zellner’s professors and classmates at a small church school in Alabama thought he was crazy for even wanting to do research on civil rights, it was nothing short of remarkable. Now, in his long-awaited memoir, Zellner tells how one white Alabamian joined ranks with the black students who were sitting-in, marching, fighting, and sometimes dying to challenge the Southern “way of life” he had been raised on but rejected. Decades later, he is still protesting on behalf of social change and equal rights. Fortunately, he took the time, with co-author Constance Curry, to write down his memories and reflections. He was in all the campaigns and was close to all the major figures. He was beaten, arrested, and reviled by some but admired and revered by others. The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, winner of the 2009 Lillian Smith Book Award, is Bob Zellner’s larger-than-life story, and it was worth waiting for.
The Wrong Side of Murder Creek
Author: Bob Zellner
Publisher: John F Blair Pub
ISBN: 9781588382221
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
The author describes his experiences as a civil rights activist in the South from 1960 to 1967.
Publisher: John F Blair Pub
ISBN: 9781588382221
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
The author describes his experiences as a civil rights activist in the South from 1960 to 1967.
Combined Destinies
Author: Ann Todd Jealous
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1612345751
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
By beginning a conversation that encourages self-examination and compassion, Combined Destinies invites its readers to look at how white Americans have been hurt by the very ideology that their ancestors created. Editors Ann Todd Jealous and Caroline T. Haskell, both experienced psychotherapists skilled at facilitating dialogue about racial issues, are cognizant of the challenges that even the thought of such conversations often presents. Their book is based on the premise that for positive and lasting change to occur, it is necessary to open hearts as well as minds. This courageous anthology posits that unearned privilege has damaged the psyche of white people as well as their capacity to understand racism. Using intimate stories, some from writers who have never before spoken of these highly charged issues, Jealous and Haskell offer readers a chance to explore their own experiences. Drawing on the personal and heartfelt stories of diverse contributors, including Robert Zellner, Bettina Aptheker, Deb Busman, Deborah Burke, Joe Ruklick, and Alisa Fineman, Combined Destinies is organized thematically, with individual chapters that focus on, for example, guilt, shame, silence, or resistance. The book includes an extensive reader's guide, posing questions for discussion pertaining to each chapter. Anyone who is interested in mental health and spiritual healing will benefit from reading this book, but it's especially suitable for teachers, professors and students of teacher education, the social sciences, and U.S. history, as well as social activists, members of community groups, therapists, clergy, and other members of the counseling profession.
Publisher: Potomac Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1612345751
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
By beginning a conversation that encourages self-examination and compassion, Combined Destinies invites its readers to look at how white Americans have been hurt by the very ideology that their ancestors created. Editors Ann Todd Jealous and Caroline T. Haskell, both experienced psychotherapists skilled at facilitating dialogue about racial issues, are cognizant of the challenges that even the thought of such conversations often presents. Their book is based on the premise that for positive and lasting change to occur, it is necessary to open hearts as well as minds. This courageous anthology posits that unearned privilege has damaged the psyche of white people as well as their capacity to understand racism. Using intimate stories, some from writers who have never before spoken of these highly charged issues, Jealous and Haskell offer readers a chance to explore their own experiences. Drawing on the personal and heartfelt stories of diverse contributors, including Robert Zellner, Bettina Aptheker, Deb Busman, Deborah Burke, Joe Ruklick, and Alisa Fineman, Combined Destinies is organized thematically, with individual chapters that focus on, for example, guilt, shame, silence, or resistance. The book includes an extensive reader's guide, posing questions for discussion pertaining to each chapter. Anyone who is interested in mental health and spiritual healing will benefit from reading this book, but it's especially suitable for teachers, professors and students of teacher education, the social sciences, and U.S. history, as well as social activists, members of community groups, therapists, clergy, and other members of the counseling profession.
Anatomy of Injustice
Author: Raymond Bonner
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307948544
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
From Pulitzer Prize winner Raymond Bonner, the gripping story of a grievously mishandled murder case that put a twenty-three-year-old man on death row. In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim's body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Elmore had been on death row for eleven years when a young attorney named Diana Holt first learned of his case. With the exemplary moral commitment and tenacious investigation that have distinguished his reporting career, Bonner follows Holt's battle to save Elmore's life and shows us how his case is a textbook example of what can go wrong in the American justice system. Moving, enraging, suspenseful, and enlightening, Anatomy of Injustice is a vital contribution to our nation's ongoing, increasingly important debate about inequality and the death penalty.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307948544
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
From Pulitzer Prize winner Raymond Bonner, the gripping story of a grievously mishandled murder case that put a twenty-three-year-old man on death row. In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim's body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Elmore had been on death row for eleven years when a young attorney named Diana Holt first learned of his case. With the exemplary moral commitment and tenacious investigation that have distinguished his reporting career, Bonner follows Holt's battle to save Elmore's life and shows us how his case is a textbook example of what can go wrong in the American justice system. Moving, enraging, suspenseful, and enlightening, Anatomy of Injustice is a vital contribution to our nation's ongoing, increasingly important debate about inequality and the death penalty.
Deer Creek Drive
Author: Beverly Lowry
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 052565724X
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
The stunning true story of a murder that rocked the Mississippi Delta and forever shaped one author’s life and perception of home. “Mix together a bloody murder in a privileged white family, a false accusation against a Black man, a suspicious town, a sensational trial with colorful lawyers, and a punishment that didn’t fit the crime, and you have the best of southern gothic fiction. But the very best part is that the story is true.” —John Grisham In 1948, in the most stubbornly Dixiefied corner of the Jim Crow south, society matron Idella Thompson was viciously murdered in her own home: stabbed at least 150 times and left facedown in one of the bathrooms. Her daughter, Ruth Dickins, was the only other person in the house. She told authorities a Black man she didn’t recognize had fled the scene, but no evidence of the man's presence was uncovered. When Dickins herself was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the community exploded. Petitions pleading for her release were drafted, signed, and circulated, and after only six years, the governor of Mississippi granted Ruth Dickins an indefinite suspension of her sentence and she was set free. In Deer Creek Drive, Beverly Lowry—who was ten at the time of the murder and lived mere miles from the Thompsons’ home—tells a story of white privilege that still has ramifications today, and reflects on the brutal crime, its aftermath, and the ways it clarified her own upbringing in Mississippi.
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 052565724X
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
The stunning true story of a murder that rocked the Mississippi Delta and forever shaped one author’s life and perception of home. “Mix together a bloody murder in a privileged white family, a false accusation against a Black man, a suspicious town, a sensational trial with colorful lawyers, and a punishment that didn’t fit the crime, and you have the best of southern gothic fiction. But the very best part is that the story is true.” —John Grisham In 1948, in the most stubbornly Dixiefied corner of the Jim Crow south, society matron Idella Thompson was viciously murdered in her own home: stabbed at least 150 times and left facedown in one of the bathrooms. Her daughter, Ruth Dickins, was the only other person in the house. She told authorities a Black man she didn’t recognize had fled the scene, but no evidence of the man's presence was uncovered. When Dickins herself was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the community exploded. Petitions pleading for her release were drafted, signed, and circulated, and after only six years, the governor of Mississippi granted Ruth Dickins an indefinite suspension of her sentence and she was set free. In Deer Creek Drive, Beverly Lowry—who was ten at the time of the murder and lived mere miles from the Thompsons’ home—tells a story of white privilege that still has ramifications today, and reflects on the brutal crime, its aftermath, and the ways it clarified her own upbringing in Mississippi.
Saying It Loud
Author: Mark Whitaker
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982114134
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
Mark Whitaker “writes with the eye of a journalist and ear of a poet” (The Boston Globe) to tell the story of the momentous year that redefined the civil rights movement as a new sense of Black identity, expressed in the slogan “Black Power,” challenged the nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis. In “crisp prose” (The New York Times) and novelistic detail Saying It Loud tells the story of how the Black Power phenomenon began to challenge the traditional civil rights movement in the turbulent year of 1966. Saying It Loud takes you inside the dramatic events in this seminal year, from Stokely Carmichael’s middle-of-the-night ouster of moderate icon John Lewis as a chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to Carmichael’s impassioned cry of “Black Power!” during a protest march in rural Mississippi. From Julian Bond’s humiliating and racist ouster from the Georgia state legislature because of his antiwar statements to Ronald Reagan’s election as California governor riding a “white backlash” vote against Black Power and urban unrest. From the founding of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, to the origins of Kwanzaa, the Black Arts Movement, and the first Black studies programs. From Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ill-fated campaign to take the civil rights movement north to Chicago to the wrenching ousting of the white members of SNCC. Deeply researched and widely reported, Saying It Loud offers brilliant portraits of the major characters in the yearlong drama and provides new details and insights from key players and journalists who covered the story. It also makes a compelling case for why the lessons from 1966 still resonate in the era of Black Lives Matter and the fierce contemporary battles over voting rights, identity politics, and the teaching of Black History.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982114134
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
Mark Whitaker “writes with the eye of a journalist and ear of a poet” (The Boston Globe) to tell the story of the momentous year that redefined the civil rights movement as a new sense of Black identity, expressed in the slogan “Black Power,” challenged the nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis. In “crisp prose” (The New York Times) and novelistic detail Saying It Loud tells the story of how the Black Power phenomenon began to challenge the traditional civil rights movement in the turbulent year of 1966. Saying It Loud takes you inside the dramatic events in this seminal year, from Stokely Carmichael’s middle-of-the-night ouster of moderate icon John Lewis as a chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to Carmichael’s impassioned cry of “Black Power!” during a protest march in rural Mississippi. From Julian Bond’s humiliating and racist ouster from the Georgia state legislature because of his antiwar statements to Ronald Reagan’s election as California governor riding a “white backlash” vote against Black Power and urban unrest. From the founding of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, to the origins of Kwanzaa, the Black Arts Movement, and the first Black studies programs. From Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ill-fated campaign to take the civil rights movement north to Chicago to the wrenching ousting of the white members of SNCC. Deeply researched and widely reported, Saying It Loud offers brilliant portraits of the major characters in the yearlong drama and provides new details and insights from key players and journalists who covered the story. It also makes a compelling case for why the lessons from 1966 still resonate in the era of Black Lives Matter and the fierce contemporary battles over voting rights, identity politics, and the teaching of Black History.
This Light of Ours
Author: Leslie G. Kelen
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496801601
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement is a paradigm-shifting publication that presents the Civil Rights Movement through the work of nine photographers who participated in the movement as activists with SNCC, SCLC, and CORE. Unlike images produced by photojournalists, who covered breaking news events, these photographers lived within the movement—primarily within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) framework—and documented its activities by focusing on the student activists and local people who together made it happen. The core of the book is a selection of 150 black-and-white photographs, representing the work of photographers Bob Adelman, George Ballis, Bob Fitch, Bob Fletcher, Matt Herron, David Prince, Herbert Randall, Maria Varela, and Tamio Wakayama. Images are grouped around four movement themes and convey SNCC's organizing strategies, resolve in the face of violence, impact on local and national politics, and influence on the nation's consciousness. The photographs and texts of This Light of Ours remind us that the movement was a battleground, that the battle was successfully fought by thousands of “ordinary” Americans among whom were the nation's courageous youth, and that the movement's moral vision and impact continue to shape our lives.
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496801601
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement is a paradigm-shifting publication that presents the Civil Rights Movement through the work of nine photographers who participated in the movement as activists with SNCC, SCLC, and CORE. Unlike images produced by photojournalists, who covered breaking news events, these photographers lived within the movement—primarily within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) framework—and documented its activities by focusing on the student activists and local people who together made it happen. The core of the book is a selection of 150 black-and-white photographs, representing the work of photographers Bob Adelman, George Ballis, Bob Fitch, Bob Fletcher, Matt Herron, David Prince, Herbert Randall, Maria Varela, and Tamio Wakayama. Images are grouped around four movement themes and convey SNCC's organizing strategies, resolve in the face of violence, impact on local and national politics, and influence on the nation's consciousness. The photographs and texts of This Light of Ours remind us that the movement was a battleground, that the battle was successfully fought by thousands of “ordinary” Americans among whom were the nation's courageous youth, and that the movement's moral vision and impact continue to shape our lives.
The Young Crusaders
Author: V. P. Franklin
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 080704007X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
An authoritative history of the overlooked youth activists that spearheaded the largest protests of the Civil Rights Movement and set the blueprint for future generations of activists to follow. Some of the most iconic images of the Civil Rights Movement are those of young people engaged in social activism, such as children and teenagers in 1963 being attacked by police in Birmingham with dogs and water hoses. But their contributions have not been well documented or prioritized. The Young Crusaders is the first book dedicated to telling the story of the hundreds of thousands of children and teenagers who engaged in sit-ins, school strikes, boycotts, marches, and demonstrations in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other national civil rights leaders played little or no part. It was these young activists who joined in the largest civil rights demonstration in US history: the system-wide school boycott in New York City on February 3, 1964, where over 360,000 elementary and secondary school students went on strike and thousands attended freedom schools. Later that month, tens of thousands of children and teenagers participated in the “Freedom Day” boycotts in Boston and Chicago, also demanding “quality integrated education.” Distinguished historian V. P. Franklin illustrates how their ingenuity made these and numerous other campaigns across the country successful in bringing about the end to legalized racial discrimination. It was these unheralded young people who set the blueprint for today’s youth activists and their campaigns to address poverty, joblessness, educational inequality, and racialized violence and discrimination. Understanding the role of children and teenagers transforms how we understand the Civil Rights Movement and the broader part young people have played in shepherding social and educational progress, and it serves as a model for the youth-led “reparatory justice” campaigns seen today mounted by Black Lives Matter, March for Our Lives, and the Sunrise Movement. Highlighting the voices of the young people themselves, Franklin offers a redefining narrative, complemented by arresting archival images. The Young Crusaders reveals a radical history that both challenges and expands our understanding of the Civil Rights Movement.
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 080704007X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
An authoritative history of the overlooked youth activists that spearheaded the largest protests of the Civil Rights Movement and set the blueprint for future generations of activists to follow. Some of the most iconic images of the Civil Rights Movement are those of young people engaged in social activism, such as children and teenagers in 1963 being attacked by police in Birmingham with dogs and water hoses. But their contributions have not been well documented or prioritized. The Young Crusaders is the first book dedicated to telling the story of the hundreds of thousands of children and teenagers who engaged in sit-ins, school strikes, boycotts, marches, and demonstrations in which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other national civil rights leaders played little or no part. It was these young activists who joined in the largest civil rights demonstration in US history: the system-wide school boycott in New York City on February 3, 1964, where over 360,000 elementary and secondary school students went on strike and thousands attended freedom schools. Later that month, tens of thousands of children and teenagers participated in the “Freedom Day” boycotts in Boston and Chicago, also demanding “quality integrated education.” Distinguished historian V. P. Franklin illustrates how their ingenuity made these and numerous other campaigns across the country successful in bringing about the end to legalized racial discrimination. It was these unheralded young people who set the blueprint for today’s youth activists and their campaigns to address poverty, joblessness, educational inequality, and racialized violence and discrimination. Understanding the role of children and teenagers transforms how we understand the Civil Rights Movement and the broader part young people have played in shepherding social and educational progress, and it serves as a model for the youth-led “reparatory justice” campaigns seen today mounted by Black Lives Matter, March for Our Lives, and the Sunrise Movement. Highlighting the voices of the young people themselves, Franklin offers a redefining narrative, complemented by arresting archival images. The Young Crusaders reveals a radical history that both challenges and expands our understanding of the Civil Rights Movement.
Letters from Mississippi
Author: Elizabeth Martínez
Publisher: Zephyr Press
ISBN: 1938890329
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
Letters from Mississippi offers a riveting, personal and multi-faceted narrative of the dramatic events that took place during the summer of 1964, "Freedom Summer," when hundreds of people came to Mississippi to volunteer with the Mississippi Summer Voting Project. The book covers the disappearance and murder of James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, the Freedom Schools, the violence and tensions at voting registration centers, and the political struggles in the halls of power. The original publication of Letters from Mississippi in 1965 was an immediate record of the mostly white volunteers in the Mississippi Summer Voting Project of 1964 ("Freedom Summer"). It went out of print in 1970. Zephyr Press' 2002 edition took the original text and placed it in a context of the history of the civil rights movement, of the broader scene in Mississippi during that summer, and of the subsequent lives of the volunteers. That edition has become a staple in studies of the civil rights movement, but it still focuses mostly on the "outsiders" in their Mississippi communities. This fiftieth anniversary edition includes: expanded biographical notes from previous editions, additional biographies of contributors to the original book, expanded notes, a filmography, and 40 pages of poetry written in the Freedom Schools by Mississippi students in 1964. The result is a wider resource for scholarship as well as for a general understanding of this critical moment in civil rights history. Elizabeth Martínez (1925-2021), edited and wrote the preface for Letters from Mississippi. She published six books and numerous articles on popular struggles in the Americas including De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century. Julian Bond (1940-2015) wrote the introduction to the book. He served four terms on the NAACP National Board and was chairman from 1998 to 2010. He was president of the Atlanta NAACP from 1978 until 1989.
Publisher: Zephyr Press
ISBN: 1938890329
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242
Book Description
Letters from Mississippi offers a riveting, personal and multi-faceted narrative of the dramatic events that took place during the summer of 1964, "Freedom Summer," when hundreds of people came to Mississippi to volunteer with the Mississippi Summer Voting Project. The book covers the disappearance and murder of James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, the Freedom Schools, the violence and tensions at voting registration centers, and the political struggles in the halls of power. The original publication of Letters from Mississippi in 1965 was an immediate record of the mostly white volunteers in the Mississippi Summer Voting Project of 1964 ("Freedom Summer"). It went out of print in 1970. Zephyr Press' 2002 edition took the original text and placed it in a context of the history of the civil rights movement, of the broader scene in Mississippi during that summer, and of the subsequent lives of the volunteers. That edition has become a staple in studies of the civil rights movement, but it still focuses mostly on the "outsiders" in their Mississippi communities. This fiftieth anniversary edition includes: expanded biographical notes from previous editions, additional biographies of contributors to the original book, expanded notes, a filmography, and 40 pages of poetry written in the Freedom Schools by Mississippi students in 1964. The result is a wider resource for scholarship as well as for a general understanding of this critical moment in civil rights history. Elizabeth Martínez (1925-2021), edited and wrote the preface for Letters from Mississippi. She published six books and numerous articles on popular struggles in the Americas including De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century. Julian Bond (1940-2015) wrote the introduction to the book. He served four terms on the NAACP National Board and was chairman from 1998 to 2010. He was president of the Atlanta NAACP from 1978 until 1989.
Unlikely Dissenters
Author: Anne Stefani
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813063116
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
"An eye-opening account of southern white women who worked to challenge racial segregation. . . . Highly recommended."--Choice "Brings to life a small but important group of women who worked hard to change the South. . . . It will help to more fully explicate the motivation and experiences of women willing to challenge expected behavior in order to bring racial justice to the region and the nation."--American Historical Review "Stefani does a stellar job of chronicling southern white women?s confrontation with segregation and white supremacy. . . . A welcome contribution to the growing historiography of little-known civil rights heroines."--North Carolina Historical Review "An intriguing narrative of women whose lives were dramatically shaped by their work in such actions as the Little Rock Central High School desegregation campaign in 1957, the Albany movement in 1961, and Freedom Summer in 1964."--Journal of American History "Extensively researched. . . . A valuable resource for anyone studying white southern women, women?s civil rights activism, and women?s activism across race, religion, and time."--Journal of Southern History "Stefani redefines the proverbial 'southern lady' with a close look at over fifty white, anti-racist women. Concentrating on traits that linked these women across two generations, Unlikely Dissenters provides the first comprehensive study of how these southern women both employed and destroyed a stereotype."--Gail S. Murray, editor of Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege "Presents a sophisticated and well-supported argument that women such as Lillian Smith, Virginia Durr, and Anne Braden challenged white supremacy at its core while knowing that they would be regarded as traitors to their race, region, and gender in doing so."--Peter B. Levy, author of Civil War on Race Street Between 1920 and 1970, a small but significant number of white women confronted the segregationist system in the American South, ultimately contributing to its demise. For many of these reformers, the struggle for African American civil rights was akin to their own complex process of personal emancipation from gender norms. As part of the white community, they wrestled with guilt as members of the "oppressor" group. Yet as women in a patriarchal society, they were also "victims." This paradoxical double identity enabled them to develop a special brand of activism that combatted white supremacy while emancipating them from white patriarchy. Using the 1954 Brown decision as a pivot, Anne Stefani examines and compares two generations of white women who spoke out against Jim Crow while remaining deeply attached to their native South. She demonstrates how their unique grassroots community-oriented activism functioned within--and even used to its advantage--southern standards of respectability.
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813063116
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
"An eye-opening account of southern white women who worked to challenge racial segregation. . . . Highly recommended."--Choice "Brings to life a small but important group of women who worked hard to change the South. . . . It will help to more fully explicate the motivation and experiences of women willing to challenge expected behavior in order to bring racial justice to the region and the nation."--American Historical Review "Stefani does a stellar job of chronicling southern white women?s confrontation with segregation and white supremacy. . . . A welcome contribution to the growing historiography of little-known civil rights heroines."--North Carolina Historical Review "An intriguing narrative of women whose lives were dramatically shaped by their work in such actions as the Little Rock Central High School desegregation campaign in 1957, the Albany movement in 1961, and Freedom Summer in 1964."--Journal of American History "Extensively researched. . . . A valuable resource for anyone studying white southern women, women?s civil rights activism, and women?s activism across race, religion, and time."--Journal of Southern History "Stefani redefines the proverbial 'southern lady' with a close look at over fifty white, anti-racist women. Concentrating on traits that linked these women across two generations, Unlikely Dissenters provides the first comprehensive study of how these southern women both employed and destroyed a stereotype."--Gail S. Murray, editor of Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege "Presents a sophisticated and well-supported argument that women such as Lillian Smith, Virginia Durr, and Anne Braden challenged white supremacy at its core while knowing that they would be regarded as traitors to their race, region, and gender in doing so."--Peter B. Levy, author of Civil War on Race Street Between 1920 and 1970, a small but significant number of white women confronted the segregationist system in the American South, ultimately contributing to its demise. For many of these reformers, the struggle for African American civil rights was akin to their own complex process of personal emancipation from gender norms. As part of the white community, they wrestled with guilt as members of the "oppressor" group. Yet as women in a patriarchal society, they were also "victims." This paradoxical double identity enabled them to develop a special brand of activism that combatted white supremacy while emancipating them from white patriarchy. Using the 1954 Brown decision as a pivot, Anne Stefani examines and compares two generations of white women who spoke out against Jim Crow while remaining deeply attached to their native South. She demonstrates how their unique grassroots community-oriented activism functioned within--and even used to its advantage--southern standards of respectability.