Gender and the Civil Rights Movement

"The most interesting field for new research on the civil rights movement is in the area of gender. This book breaks new ground by moving beyond a discussion of the contributions of individual women and men and covers the gendered basis of internal civil rights politics." --Steven Lawson, professor of history, Rutgers University, and author of Civil Rights Crossroads: Nation, Community, and the Black Freedom Struggle "These provocative, wide-ranging analyses offer refreshing perspectives on the persistently troubling question of the role of gender in American racial politics and bring contemporary debates on the relationship between sex and race into much-needed historical perspective." -Allison Graham, author of Framing the South: Hollywood, Television, and Race During the Civil Rights Struggle and co-producer of the documentary film At the River I Stand This collection of nine essays analyzes the people, the protests, and the incidents of the civil rights movement through the lens of gender. More than just a study of women, the book examines the ways in which assigned sexual roles and values shaped the strategy, tactics, and ideology of the movement. The essays deal with topics ranging from the Montgomery bus boycott and Rhythm and Blues to gangsta rap and contemporary fiction, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Referring to groups such as the National Council of African American Men and events such as the Million Man March, the authors address male gender identity as much as female, arguing that slave/master relations from before the Civil War continued to affect Black masculinity in the postwar battle for civil rights. Whereas feminism traditionally deals with issues of patriarchy and prescribed gender roles, this volume shows how race relations continue to complicate sex-based definitions within the civil rights movement.