The Rise to Respectability

Download The Rise to Respectability PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Arkansas Press
ISBN 13 : 1557286841
Total Pages : 203 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (572 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Rise to Respectability by : Calvin White

Download or read book The Rise to Respectability written by Calvin White and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rise to Respectability documents the history of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) and examines its cultural and religious impact on African Americans and on the history of the South. It explores the ways in which Charles Harrison Mason, the son of slaves and founder of COGIC, embraced a Pentecostal faith that celebrated the charismatic forms of religious expression that many blacks had come to view as outdated, unsophisticated, and embarrassing. While examining the intersection of race, religion, and class, The Rise to Respectability details how the denomination dealt with the stringent standard of bourgeois behavior imposed on churchgoers as they moved from southern rural areas into the urban centers in both the South and North. Rooted in the hardships of slavery and coming of age during Jim Crow, COGIC’s story is more than a religious debate. Rather, this book sees the history of the church as interwoven with the Great Migration, class tension, racial animosity, and the struggle for modernity—all representative parts of the African American experience.

Race, Respectability and the Struggle for Civil Rights

Download Race, Respectability and the Struggle for Civil Rights PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 366 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (129 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Race, Respectability and the Struggle for Civil Rights by : Randal Maurice Jelks

Download or read book Race, Respectability and the Struggle for Civil Rights written by Randal Maurice Jelks and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Beyond Respectability

Download Beyond Respectability PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 0252099540
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Beyond Respectability by : Brittney C. Cooper

Download or read book Beyond Respectability written by Brittney C. Cooper and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2017-05-03 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beyond Respectability charts the development of African American women as public intellectuals and the evolution of their thought from the end of the 1800s through the Black Power era of the 1970s. Eschewing the Great Race Man paradigm so prominent in contemporary discourse, Brittney C. Cooper looks at the far-reaching intellectual achievements of female thinkers and activists like Anna Julia Cooper, Mary Church Terrell, Fannie Barrier Williams, Pauli Murray, and Toni Cade Bambara. Cooper delves into the processes that transformed these women and others into racial leadership figures, including long-overdue discussions of their theoretical output and personal experiences. As Cooper shows, their body of work critically reshaped our understandings of race and gender discourse. It also confronted entrenched ideas of how--and who--produced racial knowledge.

The Struggle for Black Equality

Download The Struggle for Black Equality PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
ISBN 13 : 1429991917
Total Pages : 363 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Struggle for Black Equality by : Harvard Sitkoff

Download or read book The Struggle for Black Equality written by Harvard Sitkoff and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2008-09-30 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Struggle for Black Equality is a dramatic, memorable history of the civil rights movement. Harvard Sitkoff offers both a brilliant interpretation of the personalities and dynamics of civil rights organizations and a compelling analysis of the continuing problems plaguing many African Americans. With a new foreword and afterword, and an up-to-date bibliography, this anniversary edition highlights the continuing significance of the movement for black equality and justice.

Class, Race, and the Civil Rights Movement, Second Edition

Download Class, Race, and the Civil Rights Movement, Second Edition PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253042496
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Class, Race, and the Civil Rights Movement, Second Edition by : Jack M. Bloom

Download or read book Class, Race, and the Civil Rights Movement, Second Edition written by Jack M. Bloom and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Race, Class, and the Civil Rights Movement is a unique sociohistorical analysis of the civil rights movement. In it, Jack M. Bloom analyzes the interaction between the economy and political systems in the South, which led to racial stratification. Praise for the first edition: "A unique sociohistorical analysis of the civil rights movement, analyzing the interaction between the economy and political systems in the South, which led to racial stratification. An intriguing look at the interplay of race and class, this work is both scholarly and jargon-free. A sophisticated study."–Library Journal "This is an exciting book combining dramatic episodes with an insightful analysis.The use of concepts of class is subtle and effective." –Peter N. Stearns "Ambitious and wide-ranging." –Georgia Historical Quarterly "Excellent historical analysis." –North Carolina Historical Review "Historians should welcome this book. A well-written, jargon-free interpretive synthesis, it relates impersonal political-economic forces to the human actors who were shaped by them and, in turn, helped shape them . . . . This refreshing study reminds us how much the American dilemma of race has been complicated by problems of class." –American Historical Review "A broad historical sweep . . . . Skillfully surveys key areas of historiographical debate and succinctly summarizes a good deal of recent secondary literature." –Journal of Southern History "Bloom does a masterful job of presenting the major structural and psychological interpretations associated with the Civil Rights Movement. . . . It will make an excellent general text to welcome undergraduates and reintroduce old-timers to the social ferment that surrounded the civil rights movement." –Contemporary Sociology

Essays on the American Civil Rights Movement

Download Essays on the American Civil Rights Movement PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780890965405
Total Pages : 120 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (654 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Essays on the American Civil Rights Movement by : John Dittmer

Download or read book Essays on the American Civil Rights Movement written by John Dittmer and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As its name suggests, the civil rights movement is an ongoing process, and the scholars contributing to this volume offer new geographical and temporal perspectives on this crucial American experience. As Clayborne Carson notes in the introduction, the movement involved much more than civil rights reform--it transformed African-American political and social consciousness. In this timely volume John Dittmer provides a new assessment of the effects of grass-roots activists of the movement in Mississippi from 1965 to 1968, to show what happened after the famous Freedom Summer of 1964. George C. Wright shows how African Americans in Kentucky from 1900 to 1970 faced the same racial restrictions and violence as blacks in Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama. W. Marvin Dulaney traces the rise and fall of the movement in Dallas from the 1930s through the 1970s while the nation's attention was focused elsewhere.

Gender in the Civil Rights Movement

Download Gender in the Civil Rights Movement PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135669139
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (356 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Gender in the Civil Rights Movement by : Peter J. Ling

Download or read book Gender in the Civil Rights Movement written by Peter J. Ling and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-05 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a new anthology of essays, an international group of scholars examines the powerful interaction between gender and race within the Civil Rights Movement and its legacy.

Please Stop Helping Us

Download Please Stop Helping Us PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Encounter Books
ISBN 13 : 1594038422
Total Pages : 215 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (94 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Please Stop Helping Us by : Jason L. Riley

Download or read book Please Stop Helping Us written by Jason L. Riley and published by Encounter Books. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is it that so many efforts by liberals to lift the black underclass not only fail, but often harm the intended beneficiaries? In Please Stop Helping Us, Jason L. Riley examines how well-intentioned welfare programs are in fact holding black Americans back. Minimum-wage laws may lift earnings for people who are already employed, but they price a disproportionate number of blacks out of the labor force. Affirmative action in higher education is intended to address past discrimination, but the result is fewer black college graduates than would otherwise exist. And so it goes with everything from soft-on-crime laws, which make black neighborhoods more dangerous, to policies that limit school choice out of a mistaken belief that charter schools and voucher programs harm the traditional public schools that most low-income students attend. In theory these efforts are intended to help the poor—and poor minorities in particular. In practice they become massive barriers to moving forward. Please Stop Helping Us lays bare these counterproductive results. People of goodwill want to see more black socioeconomic advancement, but in too many instances the current methods and approaches aren’t working. Acknowledging this is an important first step.

The Making Of Black Lives Matter

Download The Making Of Black Lives Matter PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197577342
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (975 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Making Of Black Lives Matter by : Christopher J. Lebron

Download or read book The Making Of Black Lives Matter written by Christopher J. Lebron and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An introduction for the second edition of a book like The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea is a less straightforward thing than it might first seem. Typically, when an author revisits a book, some years later, their ruminations center on how they may have become clearer on the ideas in their book, taken into consideration critical corrections, or maybe, generally how their own thinking has matured thanks to the miracle of living a life. But as I sit here, towards the end of 2021, experiencing a late fall in which the leaves seem to refuse to quit the trees, I am reflecting in the midst of an entirely different set of considerations"--

The Civil Rights Movement

Download The Civil Rights Movement PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Greenhaven Publishing LLC
ISBN 13 : 1534564209
Total Pages : 106 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (345 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Civil Rights Movement by : Tamra B. Orr

Download or read book The Civil Rights Movement written by Tamra B. Orr and published by Greenhaven Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2018-07-15 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The civil rights movement was one of the most important social justice movements in American history, and readers are sure to be captivated by this in-depth look at the leaders and moments that defined this period. Enlightening main text and detailed sidebars feature quotes from the men and women who lived through this time of trial and triumph, and the facts readers discover on each page complement current social studies curriculum topics. Additional insight is provided through primary sources, a comprehensive timeline, and historical and contemporary images.

Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement

Download Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 1469648687
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (696 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement by : Traci Parker

Download or read book Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement written by Traci Parker and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2019-02-06 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Traci Parker examines the movement to racially integrate white-collar work and consumption in American department stores, and broadens our understanding of historical transformations in African American class and labor formation. Built on the goals, organization, and momentum of earlier struggles for justice, the department store movement channeled the power of store workers and consumers to promote black freedom in the mid-twentieth century. Sponsoring lunch counter sit-ins and protests in the 1950s and 1960s, and challenging discrimination in the courts in the 1970s, this movement ended in the early 1980s with the conclusion of the Sears, Roebuck, and Co. affirmative action cases and the transformation and consolidation of American department stores. In documenting the experiences of African American workers and consumers during this era, Parker highlights the department store as a key site for the inception of a modern black middle class, and demonstrates the ways that both work and consumption were battlegrounds for civil rights.

EC Comics

Download EC Comics PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
ISBN 13 : 0813566339
Total Pages : 197 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (135 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis EC Comics by : Qiana Whitted

Download or read book EC Comics written by Qiana Whitted and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-08 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Entertaining Comics Group (EC Comics) is perhaps best-known today for lurid horror comics like Tales from the Crypt and for a publication that long outlived the company’s other titles, Mad magazine. But during its heyday in the early 1950s, EC was also an early innovator in another genre of comics: the so-called “preachies,” socially conscious stories that boldly challenged the conservatism and conformity of Eisenhower-era America. EC Comics examines a selection of these works—sensationally-titled comics such as “Hate!,” “The Guilty!,” and “Judgment Day!”—and explores how they grappled with the civil rights struggle, antisemitism, and other forms of prejudice in America. Putting these socially aware stories into conversation with EC’s better-known horror stories, Qiana Whitted discovers surprising similarities between their narrative, aesthetic, and marketing strategies. She also recounts the controversy that these stories inspired and the central role they played in congressional hearings about offensive content in comics. The first serious critical study of EC’s social issues comics, this book will give readers a greater appreciation of their legacy. They not only served to inspire future comics creators, but also introduced a generation of young readers to provocative ideas and progressive ideals that pointed the way to a better America.

Beyond Discrimination

Download Beyond Discrimination PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN 13 : 1610448170
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (14 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Beyond Discrimination by : Fredrick C. Harris

Download or read book Beyond Discrimination written by Fredrick C. Harris and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2013-06-30 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly a half century after the civil rights movement, racial inequality remains a defining feature of American life. Along a wide range of social and economic dimensions, African Americans consistently lag behind whites. This troubling divide has persisted even as many of the obvious barriers to equality, such as state-sanctioned segregation and overt racial hostility, have markedly declined. How then can we explain the stubborn persistence of racial inequality? In Beyond Discrimination: Racial Inequality in a Post-Racist Era, a diverse group of scholars provides a more precise understanding of when and how racial inequality can occur without its most common antecedents, prejudice and discrimination. Beyond Discrimination focuses on the often hidden political, economic and historical mechanisms that now sustain the black-white divide in America. The first set of chapters examines the historical legacies that have shaped contemporary race relations. Desmond King reviews the civil rights movement to pinpoint why racial inequality became an especially salient issue in American politics. He argues that while the civil rights protests led the federal government to enforce certain political rights, such as the right to vote, addressing racial inequities in housing, education, and income never became a national priority. The volume then considers the impact of racial attitudes in American society and institutions. Phillip Goff outlines promising new collaborations between police departments and social scientists that will improve the measurement of racial bias in policing. The book finally focuses on the structural processes that perpetuate racial inequality. Devin Fergus discusses an obscure set of tax and insurance policies that, without being overtly racially drawn, penalizes residents of minority neighborhoods and imposes an economic handicap on poor blacks and Latinos. Naa Oyo Kwate shows how apparently neutral and apolitical market forces concentrate fast food and alcohol advertising in minority urban neighborhoods to the detriment of the health of the community. As it addresses the most pressing arenas of racial inequality, from education and employment to criminal justice and health, Beyond Discrimination exposes the unequal consequences of the ordinary workings of American society. It offers promising pathways for future research on the growing complexity of race relations in the United States.

Righteous Discontent

Download Righteous Discontent PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674254392
Total Pages : 277 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Righteous Discontent by : Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham

Download or read book Righteous Discontent written by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1994-03-15 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What Du Bois noted has gone largely unstudied until now. In this book, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham gives us our first full account of the crucial role of black women in making the church a powerful institution for social and political change in the black community. Between 1880 and 1920, the black church served as the most effective vehicle by which men and women alike, pushed down by racism and poverty, regrouped and rallied against emotional and physical defeat. Focusing on the National Baptist Convention, the largest religious movement among black Americans, Higginbotham shows us how women were largely responsible for making the church a force for self-help in the black community. In her account, we see how the efforts of women enabled the church to build schools, provide food and clothing to the poor, and offer a host of social welfare services. And we observe the challenges of black women to patriarchal theology. Class, race, and gender dynamics continually interact in Higginbotham’s nuanced history. She depicts the cooperation, tension, and negotiation that characterized the relationship between men and women church leaders as well as the interaction of southern black and northern white women’s groups. Higginbotham’s history is at once tough-minded and engaging. It portrays the lives of individuals within this movement as lucidly as it delineates feminist thinking and racial politics. She addresses the role of black Baptist women in contesting racism and sexism through a “politics of respectability” and in demanding civil rights, voting rights, equal employment, and educational opportunities. Righteous Discontent finally assigns women their rightful place in the story of political and social activism in the black church. It is central to an understanding of African American social and cultural life and a critical chapter in the history of religion in America.

Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters

Download Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812207599
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters by : Victoria W. Wolcott

Download or read book Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters written by Victoria W. Wolcott and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-08-16 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the twentieth century, African Americans challenged segregation at amusement parks, swimming pools, and skating rinks not only in pursuit of pleasure but as part of a wider struggle for racial equality. Well before the Montgomery bus boycott, mothers led their children into segregated amusement parks, teenagers congregated at forbidden swimming pools, and church groups picnicked at white-only parks. But too often white mobs attacked those who dared to transgress racial norms. In Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters, Victoria W. Wolcott tells the story of this battle for access to leisure space in cities all over the United States. Contradicting the nostalgic image of urban leisure venues as democratic spaces, Wolcott reveals that racial segregation was crucial to their appeal. Parks, pools, and playgrounds offered city dwellers room to exercise, relax, and escape urban cares. These gathering spots also gave young people the opportunity to mingle, flirt, and dance. As cities grew more diverse, these social forms of fun prompted white insistence on racially exclusive recreation. Wolcott shows how black activists and ordinary people fought such infringements on their right to access public leisure. In the face of violence and intimidation, they swam at white-only beaches, boycotted discriminatory roller rinks, and picketed Jim Crow amusement parks. When African Americans demanded inclusive public recreational facilities, white consumers abandoned those places. Many parks closed or privatized within a decade of desegregation. Wolcott's book tracks the decline of the urban amusement park and the simultaneous rise of the suburban theme park, reframing these shifts within the civil rights context. Filled with detailed accounts and powerful insights, Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters brings to light overlooked aspects of conflicts over public accommodations. This eloquent history demonstrates the significance of leisure in American race relations.

To Stand and Fight

Download To Stand and Fight PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674020952
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis To Stand and Fight by : Martha BIONDI

Download or read book To Stand and Fight written by Martha BIONDI and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the civil rights movement typically begins with the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 and culminates with the 1965 voting rights struggle in Selma. But as Martha Biondi shows, a grassroots struggle for racial equality in the urban North began a full ten years before the rise of the movement in the South. This story is an essential first chapter, not only to the southern movement that followed, but to the riots that erupted in northern and western cities just as the civil rights movement was achieving major victories. Biondi tells the story of African Americans who mobilized to make the war against fascism a launching pad for a postwar struggle against white supremacy at home. Rather than seeking integration in the abstract, black New Yorkers demanded first-class citizenship--jobs for all, affordable housing, protection from police violence, access to higher education, and political representation. This powerful local push for economic and political equality met broad resistance, yet managed to win several landmark laws barring discrimination and segregation. To Stand and Fight demonstrates how black New Yorkers launched the modern civil rights struggle and left a rich legacy. Table of Contents: Prologue: The Rise of the Struggle for Negro Rights 1 Jobs for All 2 Black Mobilization and Civil Rights Politics 3 Lynching, Northern style 4 Desegregating the metropolis 5 Dead Letter Legislation 6 An Unnatural Division of People 7 Anticommunism and Civil Rights 8 The Paradoxical Effects of the Cold War 9 Racial Violence in the Free World 10 Lift Every Voice and Vote 11 Resisting Resegregation 12 To Stand and Fight Epilogue: Another Kind of America Notes Acknowledgments Illustration Credits Index Reviews of this book: Historians have thoroughly documented the experiences of those African Americans who lived in the South and worked to repeal Jim Crow laws. However, in this work, Biondi explores what she calls 'the struggle for Negro rights' in New York City, an exploration resulting in a stark reminder of the daily challenges facing blacks who lived in northern cities...With its detailed discussions of the American Labor Party, the Communist Party, Black Nationalism, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., W. E. B. Dubois, Roy Wilkins, and, especially, Paul Robeson, this work should be required reading for all historians interested in the post-WW II experience of African Americans in the urban North. --T. D. Beal, Choice Reviews of this book: In this meticulously researched monograph, Biondi reminds the reader that the struggle for black civil rights was waged in the North before it was joined in the South. She documents the fight against racial discrimination in hiring, police brutality, housing segregation, lack of political representation, and inadequate schools in New York City between 1946 and 1954...Biondi's writing is crisp and direct. She introduces the reader to a host of activists whose efforts deserve to be remembered. Unfortunately, most of the causes they championed remain with us today. --Paul T. Murray, MultiCultural Review With stunning research and powerful arguments, Martha Biondi charts a new direction in civil rights history - the northern side of the black freedom struggle. Biondi presents postwar New York as a battleground, no less than the Jim Crow South, for the fight against police brutality and discrimination in employment, housing, retail stores, and places of amusement. Men and women, trade unionists and religious leaders, integrationists and separatists, liberals and the Left come together in this pathbreaking study of America's largest and most cosmopolitan city. --Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham,, editor-in-chief of The Harvard Guide to African-American History To Stand and Fight brilliantly re-writes the history of postwar social movements in New York City. Martha Biondi has not only extended our view of the civil rights movement to the urban North, but she places the movement squarely within an international framework. She redefines the movement, focusing on the specific struggles that mattered: jobs, welfare, housing, police misconduct, political representation, and black people's ongoing battle for independence in the colonies. To Stand and Fight will stand out as a major contribution to an already burgeoning field of civil rights studies. --Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination To Stand and Fight establishes that New York was as important a battleground for racial equality as Montgomery or Birmingham. Martha Biondi has done a great service by uncovering the rich and largely forgotten history of New York's role in the African American freedom struggle. --Thomas J. Sugrue, author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit

A More Beautiful and Terrible History

Download A More Beautiful and Terrible History PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Beacon Press
ISBN 13 : 0807075876
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (7 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A More Beautiful and Terrible History by : Jeanne Theoharis

Download or read book A More Beautiful and Terrible History written by Jeanne Theoharis and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2018-01-30 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praised by The New York Times; O, The Oprah Magazine; Bitch Magazine; Slate; Publishers Weekly; and more, this is “a bracing corrective to a national mythology” (New York Times) around the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement has become national legend, lauded by presidents from Reagan to Obama to Trump, as proof of the power of American democracy. This fable, featuring dreamy heroes and accidental heroines, has shuttered the movement firmly in the past, whitewashed the forces that stood in its way, and diminished its scope. And it is used perniciously in our own times to chastise present-day movements and obscure contemporary injustice. In A More Beautiful and Terrible History award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis dissects this national myth-making, teasing apart the accepted stories to show them in a strikingly different light. We see Rosa Parks not simply as a bus lady but a lifelong criminal justice activist and radical; Martin Luther King, Jr. as not only challenging Southern sheriffs but Northern liberals, too; and Coretta Scott King not only as a “helpmate” but a lifelong economic justice and peace activist who pushed her husband’s activism in these directions. Moving from “the histories we get” to “the histories we need,” Theoharis challenges nine key aspects of the fable to reveal the diversity of people, especially women and young people, who led the movement; the work and disruption it took; the role of the media and “polite racism” in maintaining injustice; and the immense barriers and repression activists faced. Theoharis makes us reckon with the fact that far from being acceptable, passive or unified, the civil rights movement was unpopular, disruptive, and courageously persevering. Activists embraced an expansive vision of justice—which a majority of Americans opposed and which the federal government feared. By showing us the complex reality of the movement, the power of its organizing, and the beauty and scope of the vision, Theoharis proves that there was nothing natural or inevitable about the progress that occurred. A More Beautiful and Terrible History will change our historical frame, revealing the richness of our civil rights legacy, the uncomfortable mirror it holds to the nation, and the crucial work that remains to be done. Winner of the 2018 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize in Nonfiction