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 [B1292]

2010 HCDJ 1st edition in excellent condition. Here is the courageous, groundbreaking story of Rosa Parks and Recy Taylor-a story that reinterprets the history of America's civil rights movement in terms of the sexual violence committed against Black women by white men. "An important step to finally facing the terrible legacies of race and gender in this country."-The Washington Post.

Rosa Parks was often described as a sweet and reticent elderly woman whose tired feet caused her to defy segregation on Montgomery's city buses, and whose supposedly solitary, spontaneous act sparked the 1955 bus boycott that gave birth to the civil rights movement. The truth of who Rosa Parks was and what really lay beneath the 1955 boycott is far different from anything previously written. In this groundbreaking and important book, Danielle McGuire writes about the rape in 1944 of a twenty-four-year-old mother and sharecropper, Recy Taylor, who strolled toward home after an evening of singing and praying at the Rock Hill Holiness Church in Abbeville, Alabama. Seven white men, armed with knives and shotguns, ordered the young woman into their green Chevrolet, raped her, and left her for dead. The president of the local NAACP branch office sent his best investigator and organizer-Rosa Parks-to Abbeville. In taking on this case, Parks launched a movement that exposed a ritualized history of sexual assault against Black women and added fire to the growing call for change.

From Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Powerful, fascinating, brilliantly written. Such a fascinating read about a subject I previously knew nothing about. Dr McGuire's research is impeccable and her writing is engaging, passionate and accessible. Thoroughly recommended."; "Writing black women back into the Civil Rights Movement. Thoroughly researched, well written history of the role of black women and their struggle for control of their bodies in the civil rights movement. A must for anyone interested in American history and society."; "At the Dark End of the Street is one of the most enlightening books I've read on race and gender. I learned from this book that it's not possible to have a meaningful conversation about race without talking about gender, although many have been trying to do just that for a long time. As I read, I kept feeling a sense of "Ohhhh, that explains it." At the Dark End of the Street provides much-needed illumination."