Suchergebnisse

"Weaving national narratives from stories of the daily lives and familiar places of local residents, Francoise Hamlin chronicles the slow struggle for black freedom through the history of Clarksdale, Mississippi. Hamlin paints a full picture of the town over fifty years, recognizing the accomplishments of its diverse African American community and strong NAACP branch, and examining the extreme brutality of entrenched power there. The Clarksdale story defies triumphant narratives of dramatic change, and presents instead a layered, contentious, untidy, and often disappointingly unresolved civil rights movement. Following the black freedom struggle in Clarksdale from World War II through the first decade of the twenty-first century allows Hamlin to tell multiple, interwoven stories about the town's people, their choices, and the extent of political change. She shows how members of civil rights organizations--especially local leaders Vera Pigee and Aaron Henry--worked to challenge Jim Crow through fights against inequality, police brutality, segregation, and, later, economic injustice. With Clarksdale still at a crossroads today, Hamlin explores how to evaluate success when poverty and inequality persist"--Provided by publisher

Abstract
Drawing from archives, oral histories, interviews, and Boyd's own writing, this article considers the fascinating story of Stanley Boyd, a white volunteer born in California who went undercover in Clarksdale, Mississippi, during the Mississippi Summer Project in 1964. Armed with his whiteness, a typewriter, and a carefully crafted cover, his mission was to acquire as much information as possible about the city's power structure in order to assist civil rights activists on various fronts. With this research he also completed a master's thesis. Situating Boyd in the surveillance culture of the 1960s, one dominated by the FBI, COINTELPRO, and the informants used against the movement, this essay explores how movement organizers utilized multiple strategies, even espionage, playing back at their enemies with their own game via the unadvertised and scarcely documented "special project." This essay also expands the scope of movement activism beyond purely reactionary or protest-driven activities to include careful planning and strategizing to yield information for the most impact.

Critically engages the dynamic relationship between these two moments of liberatory possibility on the Black Freedom Struggle timeline. Contributors grapple with how our understanding of the postwar moment shapes our analysis of #BLM and wherein lie the discontinuities, in order to glean lessons for future moments of insurgency

"From 1955 to 1975, Vera Pigee (1924-2007) put her life and livelihood on the line with grassroots efforts for social change in Mississippi, principally through her years of leadership in Coahoma County's NAACP. Known as the "Lady of Hats," coined by NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins, Pigee was a businesswoman, mother, and leader. Her book, The Struggle of Struggles, offers a detailed view of the daily grind of organizing for years to open the state's closed society. Fearless, forthright, and fashionable, Pigee also suffered for her efforts in the hands of white supremacists and those unwilling to accept strong women in leadership-the struggle of struggles. She wrote herself into the histories, confronted misinformation, and self-published one of the first autobiographies from the era. Women like her worked, often without accolade or recognition, in their communities all over the country, but did not document their efforts in this way. The Struggle of Struggles, originally published in 1975, spotlights the gendered and generational tensions within the civil rights movement. It outlines the complexity, frustrations, and snubs, as well as the joy and triumphs that she experienced and witnessed in the quest for a fairer and more equitable nation. This new edition begins with a detailed introductory essay by historian FrancÌʹoise N. Hamlin, who interviewed Mrs. Pigee and her daughter in the few years preceding their passing, as well as their coworkers and current activists. In addition to the insightful Introduction, Hamlin has also provided annotations to the original text for clarity and explanation, along with a timeline to guide a new generation of readers"--