civil rights

Morning Haiku

gita — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 20:00:00 +0000

From my first taste of Byron at age twelve, I was hooked on poetry. As a teen, my reading went from the Romantics to Sylvia Plath to the Beats. By the time I belatedly discovered Sonia Sanchez, who has been publishing astonishing poetry since 1969, I was ready. This, I thought, this is poetry: not a word wasted, and all of them well-chosen; inspirational, revolutionary, and speaking straight to the heart. With her latest volume, Morning Haiku, Sanchez takes her work to a new place of innovation and tenderness.

Poet, scholar, and civil rights activist, Sonia Sanchez has amassed an impressive body of work, including over sixteen books. In her latest, she shares with the reader her discovery of the haiku form, and how it spoke directly to her heart. With skill and artistry, she crafts haiku that are dedicated to many great leaders of the civil rights movement. When I read “9 haiku (for Freedom’s Sisters),” it was impossible not to cry and to feel awed and thankful. These poems are written for Kathleen Cleaver, Betty Shabazz, Barbara Jordan, and other strong women leaders. Each haiku is, by definition, brief; but Sanchez layers the poems together, and the effect makes an intense song of praise.

There are helpful yet unobtrusive explanatory notes at the end of the book, marked only with page numbers, to help the reader unfamiliar with a person mentioned in a given poem.

I have lived in Philadelphia, and the abundant murals (over a hundred) are one of the most glorious things about the city. They are a technicolor reflection of the city’s neighborhoods, of the people that give the city life. Perhaps because of this personal connection, my favorite poem in this book is “10 haiku (for Philadelphia Murals).” Each small poem adds another layer of descriptive love that I think any city resident, seeking beauty in small and sometimes chaotic places, will appreciate. The poem peaks for me at number eight, where Sanchez writes, “common ground/is we, forever/breathing this earth.”

On the dedication page for Morning Haiku, Sanchez writes: “Let me wear the day/Well so when it reaches you/You will enjoy it.” I hope this one not only takes residence in my memory, but becomes manifest in my actions.

Written by: Lisa Rand, February 6th 2011

Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC

mandy — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Martha Prescod Norman Noonan, Judy Richardson, Jean Smith Young, Faith S. Holsaert, Dorothy M. Zellner, Betty Garman Robinson

University of Illinois Press

Much has been written about the courage and tenacity of the male ministers, activists, and young turks of the Civil Rights movement: Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Julian Bond, Stokely Carmichael, and others. About the role of women, we know less.

Now, six women who were active in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) have rectified this omission by compiling their own testimonies and those of their colleagues in Hands on the Freedom Plow. Each of the fifty-two narratives acknowledges the centrality of women’s experience in the struggle for human rights in the southern United States in the late twentieth century. Weighing in at almost 600 pages, these compelling, at times harrowing personal stories recast the history of the Civil Rights movement from the perspective of women who lived it day by day.

Formed in 1960 by students—many of them from Black southern colleges—who had participated in lunch counter sit-ins, SNCC was in the forefront of desegregation and voter registration efforts. Theirs was a nearly impossible task, and the dangers they faced daily defy comprehension. Some of the accounts read more like dispatches from Srebrenica or Abu Ghraib than from southwest Georgia and Alabama. As the editors note in their introduction, “We took on the role of dismantling an ingrained system of social and political repression that was then almost a century old, and fought to replace it with a more just and egalitarian society.”

The pursuit of social justice meant the real possibility of mob violence, bodily injury, and the near-constant fear that those threats inspired. Women who chose this work often deferred their education and defied their families. Prathia Hall, the daughter of a Baptist minister from Philadelphia, was a recent college graduate when she joined the movement. She wrote plaintively about her commitment: “We had been warned in orientation sessions not to go into the field unless we were prepared to die.” Hall’s faith was tested in southwest Georgia, one of the most notorious and resistant sites of movement activity. Although she was shot and wounded by sniper fire, she continued her work in the movement. Her assailants were never identified or charged.

One of the book’s co-editors, Judy Richardson—currently a documentary film producer in Cambridge, Massachusetts—left Swarthmore College in the second half of freshman year in 1963 to go south to work for freedom in Cambridge, Maryland, then Atlanta, and later in Mississippi during Freedom Summer 1964. Richardson is a tiny, enthusiastic, and determined woman, who, when asked what she most valued about her movement experience, cited “working as a team and consensus decision making,” valuable lessons she continues to use in her work. Only recently has Richardson understood the emotional cost of her activism for her mother, who never acknowledged her own fear or being afraid for her daughter. She did not she ask her to come home—something Richardson considers a gift, a tremendous act of restraint on her mother’s part.

Another Hands on the Freedom Plow co-editor, Dorothy M. (Dottie) Zellner, joined the movement in 1960 after finishing at Queens College. A self-described daughter of Leftists who at seventeen read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for pleasure, Zellner was inspired by the activism of the Greensboro student sit-ins. She went to Miami to challenge segregation in its restaurants, and for her efforts was arrested and placed in a segregated jail. Zellner’s hope is that the stories collected in this volume will inspire others to activism. She notes that just as she grew up hearing stories of people who challenged power and braved the consequences, others may be called to action as well.

These are remarkable true stories from women who at the time were young, old, educated and not, rural and urban, Black, White, and Latina, whose collective actions made a real difference. This autumn through spring 2011, the women of Hands on the Freedom Plow will be making book-related appearances around the country, from Brooklyn, New York to Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Read the full review at Women’s Voices for Change

Written by: Faith Childs, November 14th 2010

8: The Mormon Proposition

brittany — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 08:03:00 +0000

Directed by Reed Cowan

Red Flag Releasing

Following the passage of California’s Proposition 8, a bill that constitutionally outlaws gay couples from legally marrying, rage and frustration was concentrated towards the Mormon Church for their supposed role in passing the legislation. Many suspected that church leadership in Salt Lake City had played a large role in financing and coordinating the campaign, yet until 8: The Mormon Proposition, the exact involvement and intention of the Mormon Church in passing the bill has remained ambiguous at best.

8: The Mormon Proposition exposes the deep seeded anti-gay bias within the Mormon Church and provides answers to questions about the church’s actual political involvement, something that has raised suspicion for decades. The film reveals a well-oiled and infinitely wealthy political action force operating largely under anyone’s radar, until now.

What surprised me most about the Mormon involvement with the campaign was discovering that church officials actually required church members in California to attend a special satellite broadcast from Salt Lake City regarding the ballot initiative.

Aware of its negative public image, leaders instructed church members to maintain secrecy about the broadcast. M. Russell Ballard, a top church authority, told followers to consider the broadcast “to be as though we were sitting in my living room having a confidential talk about a serious concern.”

Despite this sentiment, full audio of the broadcast was leaked, and shows leaders commanding members to give as much time and money as possible to help pass the legislation.

8: The Mormon Proposition has many heroes: current and former Mormons who risked social banishment to take a stand against their religion’s involvement with Proposition 8 and the potent anti-gay attitude of the church.

Shining among such heroes is Linda Stay, an active Utah Mormon and mother to Tyler Barrick, a gay California man in a long-term relationship. Stay’s own “coming out,” as she refers to it, was publicly taking a stand against Proposition 8 in order to support her son’s happiness and right to marry.

As an example of parents who uphold the church’s position the film introduces Marilyn and Fred Matis, authors of the book In Quiet Desperation: Understanding The Challenge Of Same-Gender Attraction. The description of the book states it is written for those who have loved ones suffering in “quiet desperation” with “same-gender attraction,” and how to “reach out with love” to such people.

The parents wrote the book shortly after the death of their son Stuart, who had spent his entire life trying to overcome homosexual feelings. Stuart’s “quiet desperation” led him to shoot himself in the head inside a Mormon Church house at age thirty-two.

In their book the parents write: “Each of us had an indescribable sense of peace after Stuart’s death.” When asked about their position on Proposition 8, the couple stated their only position was the position of the church.

The film does an excellent job portraying the many consequences that such widespread bigotry has on a community. Utah leads the nation in teen suicide, and studies show that a large proportion of victims are gay Mormons. Thousands of homeless teens occupy Utah streets, most fleeing intolerance by their families. The film even exposes the former use of frontal lobotomies in Utah to attempt to treat men “charged” with homosexuality

While the documentary paints a bleak picture of shocking faith-based bigotry, it ends with images of passionate masses, refusing to give up on the battle for equality.

Similar passion was exhibited in the civil rights struggles of the last century. Then, too, the Mormon Church lagged behind the rest of the country, not allowing members of color receive full privileges until 1978. The passionate masses will convince all viewers that the fight for gay rights will eventually be won, and that history will record the Mormon Church once again being on the wrong side of this civil rights battle.

Written by: Janice Formichella, August 28th 2010

Beauty Shop Politics: African American Women’s Activism in the Beauty Industry

admin — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Tiffany M. Gill

University of Illinois Press

In Beauty Shop Politics, Tiffany M. Gill documents the central role that Black beauticians played in the struggle against Jim Crow laws. Beauty shops were one of the few industries that offered Black women some economic stability and upward mobility in the face of segregation. The industry also offered Black women a respectable alternative to domestic labor, as well as a chance to not work for White people. As political tensions rose, civil rights organizers increasingly turned to Black beauticians for disseminating social and political information.

Initially, White English and French men dominated the hair care industry. Black men slowly worked their way in, serving as hairdressers for White women, but that period was short-lived, as the stereotype of Black men as sexual predators began to emerge. During the antebellum period, Black women began to emerge as hairdressers in greater numbers; the early twentieth century saw the emergence of Black female entrepreneurs, namely Annie Malone and Madame C.J. Walker, who played an integral role in expanding Black beauty culture.

Through hard work and sheer perseverance, the women fought for beauticians to gain the respect of the general public. The women had to fight charges that they were inhibiting racial uplift, particularly because their products appeared to straighten Black women’s hair at a time when it was culturally looked down upon. Still, the women fought to have beautician courses established at Black colleges, arguing that the industry provided Black women economic stability. They also fiercely promoted themselves to the public by contributing to various philanthropic causes.

In times of economic hardship, the beauty industry offered Black women an opportunity to enter a respectable profession that entailed a steady income and entrepreneurial opportunities. On the national level, women worked to create a national organization that would legitimize their profession. In 1912, Madame Walker argued that “hairdresser” was a derogatory term, and insisted on the use of the term “beauty culturist.” With their economic and professional status now in place, beauty culturists were quickly gaining a strong foothold and establishing their place within their communities.

Because the Black beauty industry was owned and supplied by Blacks, and catered to the Black community, Black beauticians had some insulation from the economic hardships that their peers faced. Thus, they were able to participate in civil rights activism without the fear of losing their jobs or their customer base. Some, for instance, established literacy schools so that their students would be able to pass voter registration tests. Others distributed information through their beauty shops, which had become central locations for community organizing. Gill also extends her research to the present day, noting how the focus has now shifted from civil rights to women’s health initiatives.

Perhaps the best thing about this book is its accessibility to a wide audience. Gill writes in a clear and engaging style that makes the book an excellent choice for a non-academic reader who is interested in the subject. She includes noted figures in Black women’s history such as Madame Walker, Annie Malone, and Septima Clark, and uses compelling anecdotes about women such as Mahalia Jackson and Anne Moody, author of Coming of Age in Mississippi. Most importantly, Gill introduces the reader to a roster of lesser-known figures who also played important roles during this period. The book is an invaluable resource for women’s history and African American history scholars.

Written by: Melissa Arjona, July 6th 2010

No Mexicans, Women or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:03:00 +0000

By Cynthia E. Orozco

University of Texas Press

So often, when studying the history of civil rights in the United States in school, the curriculum concentrates on the struggles faced by African Americans and white women. The plights of other minority groups though, such as Asian Americans or Hispanic Americans, are often omitted from the textbooks. In those rare instances when these other groups are mentioned, their histories are condensed into a paragraph or side note. Cynthia E. Orozco attempts to shed some light on one of these ignored civil rights movements in her book, No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed. Her chronicle is a fascinating exploration at an overlooked chapter of American history.

I grew up in Texas, graduated from a Texas university, and currently teach in the same district where I attended school as a youth. Suffice to say, I have some experience studying Texas history. I found Orozco’s book, which focuses mainly on the region of South Texas, to be extremely eye-opening. Orozco outlines the history and development of the Mexican American culture and civil rights movement, starting with the early 1900s and concentrating mostly on the cities of San Antonio and Corpus Christi. She draws readers in, not with flashy writing or hooks, but with historical data and simple statistics that are interesting and to the point.

The book starts out by defining the cultural differences between Mexican Americans whose families have lived in Texas since before it became a state and recently immigrated Mexicans—a difference that many modern Americans still struggle with. Orozco then delves into the history of the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC as it is commonly known by, as well as other organizations that were influential in the Mexican-American civil rights movement. She also takes on the issue of gender inequality within Mexican-American society and how this affected the civil rights movement and modern scholars’ perception of the women who participated in it.

For those interested in American history, civil rights history, women’s history, or Mexican American history, this book should be at the top of your reading list. After completing this book, I found myself wanting to know more about the people and incidents discussed. One can only hope that more books like this one will be published so that people can be educated on all facets of the civil rights movement in America.

Written by: Victoria Kroeger, February 20th 2010

Southern Horrors: Women and the Politics of Rape and Lynching

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:03:00 +0000

By Crystal N. Feimster

Harvard University Press

Southern Horrors explores the racial and sexual politics of the Post Civil War South predominantly through the political writings, speeches, and lives of two prominent female figures of the era. Feimster describes the period through Rebecca Latimer Felton, a white woman from the stately plantation class, educated and raised during antebellum south, and Ida B. Wells, a the daughter of former slaves, raised during the reconstruction era.

The author begins by describing the two women’s origins and how they came to rally around the issues of rape and women’s protection. “Protection”, in this context, is what would be, in modern times, included in the definition of women’s suffrage. It was a push for women to obtain the right to own property, have a bank account, inherit estates, and seek justice for wrongdoings or violence done against them. Both Felton and Wells were revolutionary in their own ways, challenging and breaking through the gender norms and expectations of the era. However, their experiences were staunchly different and in many ways based solely upon their racial identities.

I found it intriguing that Feimster chose to follow both a white woman and a black woman to describe the sexual and gender violence embedded in early twentieth century politics. The strategy definitely helped to paint the entire picture of the conflicting struggles of the Southern reconstruction. On the one hand, there was a push to preserve traditional Southern norms; on the other, pressure from the black community for inclusion and equality.

Both women were particularly fascinating, especially in their approaches and ideologies. Wells highlighted that the threat of rape and sexual assault was used as a tool of control, a justification of violence against women, and a way to maintain white male supremacist power. She was a radical voice and decades ahead of her time; her ideas were characteristic of activists of the women's movement in the United States in the 1960s. Felton started her political career by advocating for rights and protection for all women, regardless of race or class, but later completely switched her views to better appeal to the male audiences and supporters.

My initial reaction to Felton’s shift in politics was outrage. I was terribly disappointed, though not surprised, in her neglect and discarding of black women’s issues. I saw a parallel of second wave feminist activism and marginalization of women of color in Felton’s shift. Her lack of conviction was frustrating and left me wondering how history may have been altered if she had held true. The text also discusses more general ideas of Southern white masculinity, black masculinity, the convict leasing system, the politics behind lynching, and both women’s involvement in and victimization of lynching.

I admire and respect the way in which Feimster presented the two women. Her analysis of the events was critical and highly thought provoking, and I often found myself sitting lost in thought after finishing a chapter. While not a leisurely read, it was enjoyable overall. There was quite a bit of material to process and think about, and I often found myself wishing I had someone to discuss it with.

While it is relatively easy to find people to discuss the issues of race and class in the South in general terms, to really engage in the material presented proved more difficult. This book would be an excellent basis of discussion on early women’s movement and the intersections of race, class, and sexuality. It also presents many hidden histories of the South, which can be shocking and intense at times.

Written by: Liz Martin, February 7th 2010

Freedom’s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Katherine Mellen Charron

University of North Carolina Press

When Septima Clark began teaching in 1919, she quickly learned that good education is very much like community organizing. Both start by identifying pressing needs, involve the affected in formulating solutions, and give them a stake in the final outcome. Freedom's Teacher tells Clark’s story, and while the writing is drily academic, the book is an important reminder that each of us can make a dent in the status quo.

Clark was a teacher’s teacher, a skilled motivator and a driven, hard-working, proponent of human equality and the power of the classroom to encourage and provoke social change. Her personal life was not easy—her husband died young and she was forced to send her son to live with his paternal grandparents—but her ability to shift gears and accept new opportunities, even in late middle age, is inspiring.

Born to working class parents, her first job was on Johns Island, a tiny underdeveloped farm community off the coast of South Carolina. Clark did not go to the island by choice. In fact, the position was the only placement she could find since her native city, Charleston, refused to hire African Americans to teach in the city’s segregated schools. Johns Island, populated by largely illiterate Black farmers, challenged the fledgling educator whose would-be students lived in such intense poverty that they had to work in the fields instead of attending classes.

But what to do? Clark understood that getting islanders to allow their children to study would be difficult so she began going door to door, speaking about the benefits of formal coursework. “At every turn, Charron writes, “success mandated creativity.” It also mandated that Clark get involved in people’s everyday lives, not only learning Gullah, but also helping them write letters, fill out forms, and determine crop prices and proper wages. What’s more, free evening literacy classes for adults—taught by Clark—gave residents the tools to expand their options. Decades later, Clark brought this experience to the civil rights movement, crafting adult literacy classes to activate and empower those who attended.

The few years Clark spent on Johns Island radicalized her, and Charron describes Clark’s increased agitation over the miserable conditions her students had to contend with, including a decrepit, unheated school building, inadequate supplies, and non-existent text books. Protests against racial disparities set her on a course that would last six-plus decades. Furthermore, her quest for justice prompted her to get involved in numerous civic and civil rights groups including the Highlander Folk School, the YWCA, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Citizenship Education Program [CEP].

Women formed the crux of the CEP, teaching unschooled southerners how to pass literacy tests so that they could vote and then discussing everything from racist laws to activist strategies for changing them. Clark was the force behind much of the CEP’s work, toiling behind the scenes but receiving few accolades for her intrepid work.

Unfazed, Clark never lost sight of the big picture, continually condemning government spending on war and the concomitant failure to provide adequate funds “to end joblessness, slum conditions, and to correct educational deprivation in the ghettos.” Similarly, she never lost her faith in movements for world betterment and her cautious optimism—which lasted until her death in 1987—was infectious.

Clark’s example reminds us that change is never linear or free of backlash. While she picked her battles, Clark knew the importance of nonviolent resistance. As she saw it, watching from the sidelines was never an option.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, January 25th 2010

Wherever There's a Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:00:00 +0000

By Elaine Elinson, Stan Yogi

Heyday Books

On June 16th, 2008 Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin made headlines as the first same-sex couple legally married in the state of California. The couple, who first met in the ‘50s, spent the majority of their adult lives advocating for equal rights for homosexual couples and lived to see their goal realized. Although Californians have fought the battle for same-sex marriage most visibly in the past ten years, activists such as Lyon and Martin have been addressing the issue of discrimination against homosexuals in California for several decades. Lyon and Martin’s story is just one of the many civil rights struggles highlighted in Wherever There’s a Fight, an anthology of activism in the Golden State.

Each story carries with it a delightful tinge of tension, and as I read I found myself anxiously awaiting to hear how ordinary citizens had confronted their various struggles. Elinson and Yogi, both writers with close professional ties to the California ACLU, document civil liberties struggles from abortion rights to workers rights to the right to dissent. The stories demonstrate how many Californians became lifelong activists after fighting for rights that so vitally affected their access to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Ed Roberts was such a person. Roberts was infected with polio as a boy, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. After his mother lobbied the local school board to allow her son to graduate high school (the principal had denied Roberts a diploma because he was unable to complete the district’s physical education and drivers education requirements) Roberts decided he would attend college to secure a meaningful livelihood. In 1962 he became the first severely disabled student admitted to the University of California at Berkeley, although the administration was unaware when they admitted him that the straight-A student was disabled. Thus began a fight for equal access and protection that Roberts would fight for the rest of his life that made California into the birthplace of the disability rights movement in the United States.

As the fight for civil rights becomes more visible, and more progress is gained, perhaps a second edition of this wonderful book will include some exciting new stories. I can’t wait!

Written by: Janice Formichella, January 13th 2010

A Community Organizer's Tale: People and Power in San Francisco

admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:00:00 +0000

By Mike Miller

Heyday Books

A Community Organizer’s Tale: People and Power in San Francisco is a radical history with a heap of theory folded in and a touch of imagery. It would be fascinating and informative to anyone interested in community organizing, housing issues, ethnic and labor struggles, civil rights, the history of San Francisco, or community-friendly city planning. The author, a San Francisco native, has been deeply involved in community organizing in the area for most of seventy-two years. He has a long resume of primary and supportive positions with communities, many central to famous movements and connected to famous organizers in San Francisco and other cities. He touches on details of his experience during the '60s in significant famous events in the civil rights and labor movements and the climates that developed into one another consecutively.

Major connections are revisited several times, which was helpful for me since I am a reader without a lot of previous understanding of the timing or significance of all the events, as well as terms like urban renewal and model cities. Strategies of urban renewal and model cities, for example, have had different outcomes for each city, depending on how the greater number of individuals and cohesive organizations in the communities responded. If you are wondering what Miller’s opinion of those strategies is, it’s not all good, at least not historically. He presents the simple, logical, and real reasons why.

In addition to describing what was going on nationally and how the top organizers worked, Miller tells of his experience as an organizer, emphasizing his various organizations goals and what political and economic decisions meant for middle class workers, minorities, unemployed, and homeowners and tenants in various communities. If you live in or are familiar with San Francisco, you might be tickled or heartbroken by truths revealed about causes of change in particular neighborhoods. Individual churches, blocks, restaurants, and business people are painted in a favorable light. One of my favorite lines depicting neighborhood politics is where he states, “We were regulars there, so the owner didn’t mind his cook taking breaks to be a community leader.” My other favorite line is a quote before the introduction, a former New York Governor on community organizing: “[Barack Obama] was a community organizer... I don’t even know if that’s a job.”

This would be a great educational piece for interested students, or workers in the field. That is, anyone wanting to get up to speed on what has happened in community organizing in San Francisco, Chicago, and nationally. I recommend it to anyone wanting to be part of the future of this movement, because history really does inspire greatness.

Written by: Heather Irvine, December 23rd 2009

Same Sex, Different Politics: Success and Failure in the Struggles Over Gay Rights

admin — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:25:00 +0000

By Gary Mucciaroni

University of Chicago Press

Gary Mucciaroni’s Same Sex, Different Politics offers a useful, though ultimately limited, account of the LGBT rights movement. Trained as a political scientist, Mucciaroni’s interests lie in the varying degrees of success and failure over LGBT public policy issues. He questions why certain policy issues (such as adoption) fare better than others (most notably marriage equality). Unlike studies that focus on individual policy areas, Mucciaroni’s text is an attempt to comparatively analyze multiple policy struggles in order to arrive at broad conclusions about the current state of the LGBT movement, as well as to identify new directions/methods with which to approach LGBT activism. As such, Mucciaroni charts six individual policy issues alongside and in relation to each other: military service, homosexual conduct and sodomy laws, adoption, marriage and partnership, hate crime legislation, and civil rights.

Using a variety of social science resources and extensive quantitative data, Mucciaroni deftly charts the contradictions that emerge through the comparative analysis of individual policy concerns. For example, he identifies an inherent disconnect in (seemingly) widespread public support for anti-discrimination legislation in venues like employment and housing, but stronger opposition to marriage equality and military service.

While Mucciaroni’s text is definitely groundbreaking in terms of its comparative methodological approach, its circumscribed focus on public policy, juridical process, and legislation disallows any discussion of the larger cultural, social, and ideological controversies that underlie public policy initiatives. What emerges is an argument that continually and uncritically reifies the legal system as the primary venue for bringing about social change, with little acknowledgement of the cultural work that necessarily needs to occur alongside policy struggles. Indeed, for a book that claims to concern itself with the material realities of family, discrimination, sex, and relationships, Same Sex, Different Politics remains utterly disconnected from the communities it seeks to represent.

Written by: Ashvin R. Kini, May 1st 2009

Journey Toward Justice: Juliette Hampton Morgan and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

admin — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 12:52:00 +0000

By Mary Stanton

University of Georgia Press

For those of us who remember the Civil Rights struggle of the '60s and '70s, this book is a valuable reminder of just where life stood back then, how far we’ve come and how much further we still have to go. Journey Toward Justice is the intimate story of one woman’s emerging awareness of the injustice permeating the life of her community and the development of a conscience that would not be denied.

This story shows clearly where women were back then and the courage required to step outside an appointed role. It shows how determined the white majority were to maintain the status quo, how courageous were those determined to effect change. Most women today don’t know what it meant to be a second class citizen, to know that career opportunities were limited to nurse (not doctor or hospital administrator), teacher (never principal), secretary (period) or librarian. And this was for middle-class white women.

Juliette Hampton Morgan starts out as an eminently likable young woman. As her story unfolds she becomes an eminently admirable one as well. Her story reads more like a novel than a real-life story. Her childhood was shadowed by family conflict - her young adulthood tainted by family responsibilities and sacrifices she shouldered - which makes the reader burn at the injustice of the demands made. Through it all she was sustained by the lifelong friendships she made, many of them in the organizations she joined or helped establish while seeking to better her community.

Working as a librarian, Juliette took the bus to her work and, in doing so, began to observe not just the segregation, but the ill treatment accorded black riders. In protest, she began getting off the bus every time she witnessed a bus driver cheating or abusing black riders. This brought no change, so she began writing letters to the editor of the local newspaper.

Since Juliette knew the editor, her letters were published. What followed was not a concerted campaign on her part, but a series of eloquent letters written over time in support of desegregation. Her letters were not written to be published, but as the personal expression of someone distressed by the inequities she witnessed,and her prognosis for a future vastly improved by allowing equal access to publicly funded education, transportation and housing. During the second World War she wrote that if a black man was good enough to die for his country, surely he deserved a seat on the bus.

As events around Juliette escalated, she refused to change her position, refused to “shut up” and resolutely stood her ground, despite the toll it took on her physical health. It eventually cost her her life.

Written by: Margaret E. Guthrie, March 11th 2007