How Long? How Long? African-American Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights offers a powerful reinterpretation of the Civil Rights movement through the voices and experiences of African-American women organizers.
Drawing extensively on interviews with women who participated in the movement, the book reframes familiar events by centring the activists who have often been overlooked in favour of higher-profile male and white leaders. It highlights the diversity of roles African-American women played, from grassroots organizing to strategic leadership.
The author examines how race, class, gender, and culture shaped both the internal dynamics of the movement and its public impact. Rather than treating "femaleness" and "blackness" as simple categories, the book explores how these identities intersected in complex ways to influence leadership, participation, and personal experience.
Ideal for readers interested in social movements, women’s history, and African-American studies, this study also contributes to broader debates in feminist and social movement theory by showing why multiple layers of leadership are essential to transformative change.
- First full-length analysis of African-American women’s leadership in the Civil Rights movement
- Based on interviews with movement participants
- Explores intersections of race, class, gender, and culture
- Relevant to history, women’s studies, and social activism courses
