Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The History of the Civil Rights Movement and the Women Who Inspired It



The Takeaway with John Hockenberry & Celeste Headlee

The History of the Civil Rights Movement & the Women Who Inspired It
Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Consider the history of the civil rights movement, but set aside for a moment the well-known stories from men: those of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Emmett Till, Medgar Evers and Andrew Goodman. If we examine the movement through the eyes of the women there at the time, what would the story sound like?

Everyone knows the story of Rosa Parks, an old and tired seamstress who refused to give up her seat for a white man on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. But that moment had a long history behind it. Parks' story actually began with her work at the NAACP and her investigation of the brutal sexual abuse and rape of African American woman in the south. It's through that lens that author Danielle McGuire views the civil rights movement. She is the author of At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance - A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power.



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