Jeanne Theoharis

A deep and unflinching examination of some of the most widely held misconceptions about the Civil Rights Movement. Many of these false ideas were put about intentionally to control the narrative and use it for political gain. The author spends a lot of time discussing the legacy of Coretta Scott King and Rosa Parks, two women whose lives have been largely erased to make them palatable and "ideal female figureheads". The author dwells upon the intersection of the Civil Rights Movement and the movement for Women's Rights. The prevailing misogyny of the time required these women to "simple", "humble", "help-meets" rather than the determined, strategic activists that they were.

Many key events of this time are cloaked in similar myth-making which robs our history of its greater power. The author picks apart why these myths were created and for what purpose and then strives to replace these commonly held beliefs with truth. A fascinated and beautifully executed correction of popular history.… (meer)

This would’ve made a great 10,000 word essay, and is possibly adapted from a series of speeches/papers, which might explain the repetition of anecdotes and arguments. The core argument is clearly correct: when people condemn Black Lives Matter and compare modern freedom movements unfavorably with the civil rights movement because of the latter’s supposedly more uniting tactics, they are ignoring the real history, which is that King and Parks were highly unpopular with whites, and controversial even among some African-Americans, while they were in the midst of demanding justice. Also, there were long struggles in the North and the South, instead of transformative moments in which real Americans realized that racism was bad. Northern whites in particular seized on the rhetoric of cultural disadvantage to explain why Brown v. Board didn’t mean that their kids had to go to school with black and brown kids, and busing had been used in Boston for many years before desegregation—indeed, busing had been a tool of segregation so that whites and blacks living within a block of one another got different schools. (By the way, the black schools were so overcrowded that the school board proposed doing half-day shifts—they didn’t propose letting the kids go to less crowded white schools, though.)… (meer)

A powerful account of the Civil Rights Movement in all its "terrible beauty" and an analysis of how that history is already being watered down and misused.

Jeanne Theoharis is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College. She has published on Civil Rights, race, and social welfare. Her book, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, was especially well received. In it she introduced some the themes which shape her latest book.

Theoharis is concerned about how recent politicians and pundits are nostalgically comparing the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s with similar movements today as if the former protests were better because they were quieter and less disruptive. She displays abundant evident that this view is simply not true. Taking her title from the words of James Baldwin, she reminds us of the anger and disruptive force of earlier years, often telling stories that we have conveniently forgotten or never understood. In the process, she reveals the common threads of then and now and encourages readers to speak out despite allies who would silence them.

Early chapters in the book address the way in which long ongoing activism lay behind the activism of the 1950s and 1960s. If white people had known the history of their own towns and regions, they would not have been “surprised” when protesters appeared. Theoharis fleshes out the actions of Rosa Parks and others in Montgomery long before the Boycott. She also describes how even Martin Luther King angered whites and some blacks who feared what might be lost in the response to open opposition.zi

As Theoharis explains race relations in Northern and Western cities always were distorted as opponents used different words to keep the Civil Rights Movement confined to the South. She focuses on Los Angeles, Boston, and Detroit, where the protest of blacks had long gone ignored until they burst out in violence. She also devotes chapters highlighting the young people in the movement and women's roles. Instead of repeating the emerging stories of rural women organizers, she reveals the roles of women in the 1963 March on Washington and the exclusion of them by the black male leaders.

I recommend this book to all readers. In telling her stories, Theoharis opened my eyes to events I had never known about, even though I have researched and taught African American History. It is simply an enjoyable taste of history at its most truthful and beautiful. Once she pointed it out, I immediately saw the numerous ways in which we are minimizing the power of the Movement.

Beacon Press merits congratulations for publishing three excellent books of African American history this spring that will be welcome by teachers, scholars, and the general public. All three can help us regain a more accurate vision of the actual character of the Civil Rights Movement at a time when that vision is being sentimentalized and “white washed.” I will be reviewing all three this week so you can check out the others.

A More Beautiful and Terrible History, Jeanne Theoharis.

An African American and Latinx History of the United States, by Paul Oritz.

History Teaches Us to Resist, by Mary Francis Berry.

Civil… (meer)