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 1st Edition

by Danielle L. McGuire (Author)

137 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0307269065

ISBN-10: 030726906X

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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 to Abbeville. Her name was Rosa Parks. In taking on this case, Parks launched a movement that ultimately changed the world.

The author gives us the never-before-told history of how the civil rights movement began; how it was in part started in protest against the ritualistic rape of black women by white men who used economic intimidation, sexual violence, and terror to derail the freedom movement; and how those forces persisted unpunished throughout the Jim Crow era when white men assaulted black women to enforce rules of racial and economic hierarchy. Black women’s protests against sexual assault and interracial rape fueled civil rights campaigns throughout the South that began during World War II and went through to the Black Power movement. The Montgomery bus boycott was the baptism, not the birth, of that struggle.

At the Dark End of the Street describes the decades of degradation black women on the Montgomery city buses endured on their way to cook and clean for their white bosses. It reveals how Rosa Parks, by 1955 one of the most radical activists in Alabama, had had enough. “There had to be a stopping place,” she said, “and this seemed to be the place for me to stop being pushed around.” Parks refused to move from her seat on the bus, was arrested, and, with fierce activist Jo Ann Robinson, organized a one-day bus boycott.

The protest, intended to last twenty-four hours, became a yearlong struggle for dignity and justice. It broke the back of the Montgomery city bus lines and bankrupted the company.

We see how and why Rosa Parks, instead of becoming a leader of the movement she helped to start, was turned into a symbol of virtuous black womanhood, sainted and celebrated for her quiet dignity, prim demeanor, and middle-class propriety—her radicalism all but erased. And we see as well how thousands of black women whose courage and fortitude helped to transform America were reduced to the footnotes of history.

A controversial, moving, and courageous book; narrative history at its best.

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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Long before Rosa Parks became famous for resisting Jim Crow laws, she was engaged in advocating for social justice for black women who were the victims of sexual violence at the hands of white men. Historian McGuire aims to rewrite the history of the civil rights movement by highlighting sexual violence in the broader context of racial injustice and the fight for freedom. Parks worked as an investigator for the NAACP branch office in Montgomery, Alabama, specializing in cases involving black women who had been sexually assaulted by white men––cases that often went untried and were the political opposite of the allegations of black men raping white women ending in summary lynching with or without trials. McGuire traces the history of several rape cases that triggered vehement resistance by the NAACP and other groups, including the 1975 trial of Joan Little, who killed a white jailer who sexually assaulted her. Despite the long tradition of dismissing charges brought by blacks against whites, several of the cases ended in convictions, as black women asserted their right to be treated justly. --Vanessa Bush

Review

"Groundbreaking . . . inspiring."

—Bliss Broyard, ELLE

"One one of those rare studies that makes a well-known story seem startlingly new. Anyone who thinks he knows the history of the modern civil rights movement needs to read this terrifying, illuminating book."

—Kevin Boyle, author of Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age, winner of the National Book Award.

"McGuire restores to memory the courageous black women who dared seek legal remedy, when black women and their families faced particular hazards for doing so. McGuire brings the reader through a dark time via a painful but somehow gratifying passage in this compelling, carefully documented work."
—Publishers Weekly (starred)

"This gripping story changes the history books, giving us a revised Rosa Parks and a new civil rights story. You can’t write a general U.S. history without altering crucial sentences because of McGuire’s work. Masterfully narrated, At the Dark End of the Street presents a deep civil rights movement with women at the center, a narrative as poignant, painful and complicated as our own lives."
—Timothy B. Tyson, author of Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story

"Just when we thought there couldn’t possibly be anything left to uncover about the civil rights movement, Danielle McGuire finds a new facet of that endlessly prismatic struggle at the core of our national identity. By reinterpreting black liberation through the lens of organized resistance to white male sexual aggression against African-American women, McGuire ingeniously upends the white race’s ultimate rationale for its violent subjugation of blacks—imputed black male sexual aggression against white women. It is an original premise, and At the Dark End of the Street delivers on it with scholarly authority and narrative polish."
—Diane McWhorter, author of Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution

"Following the lead of pioneers like Darlene Clark Hine, Danielle McGuire details the all too ignored tactic of rape of black women in the everyday practice of southern white supremacy. Just as important, she plots resistance against this outrage as an integral facet of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. This book is as essential as its history is infuriating."
—Nell Irvin Painter, author of The History of White People

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Product details

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (September 7, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 030726906X
ISBN-13: 978-0307269065
Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 1.3 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
Average Customer Review: 137 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #225,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #73 in Books > Textbooks > Social Sciences > Political Science > Civil Rights
- #297 in Books > Textbooks > Social Sciences > Gender Studies
- #524 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Civil Rights & Liberties

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santa cruz woman

If he is going to make stupid statements he should know his facts

October 11, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Should be taught in all schools. It documents the special ongoing oppression of black women by rape. They grew up knowing their bodies were not their own but the property of any passing white. This book documents the courage with which they fought back against overwhelming odds to report these crimes and receive legal justice and the ongoing failure of state and federal powers to take steps. The bus boycott was organized and led by women against a system where bus drivers were free to beat them and sexually harass them. Many were beaten and raped and lost their jobs but in the face of death did not give up. The crimes detailed here are horrid to read but the courage of the women and men who protested should not be forgotten. The book has a lot of footnotes and a long bibliography for those who want to read more and she has interviewed many who took part. Others have pointed that Rosa Parks was an active freedom fighter and that other women had been protesting bus unequal practices. It is well written and very readable. Mike Ditka football player who just stated there has been no oppression in 100 yrs should be forced to read this. If he is going to make stupid statements he should know his facts.

14 people found this helpful15 people found this helpful

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Mal

This Book Will Change Your Life or at Least Your Perspective

April 1, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This was an excellent book. I read it for a Women's Studies course and am so glad I did. It is a hard read at times due to the subject matter and I got chills over and over with every page I turned. This is a dense read so full of information, facts, and, the best part in my opinion, stories that hit you straight in your emotions (I am not ashamed to admit I got a little teary eyed at times). The Civil Rights Movement in the US is definitely taken for granted and has been whittled down to little bites of history where MLK Jr. is glorified and positioned as the center piece but if you read this book you'll learn there was so so much more to it and that once again history bears its burden on the backs of so many brave black women.

15 people found this helpful16 people found this helpful

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JAH

I want to tell every white person to read this book

August 7, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I want to tell every white person to read this book. To read it all the way through and then sit down and think about it. Take notes. Think about it some more. Does this narrative match what you learnt at school? Does it match your experience growing up? Does this USA resemble the USA you have been living in?

At the Dark End of the Street is a hard read. Inside we learn about what happened to Recy Taylor in detail. About all of the work Rosa Parks was doing years before she refused to get up from that bus seat. About the countless cases of brutality and rape of black women by white men. Of the countless cases where white women called rape on innocent black men. Be prepared to be sickened by the institutionalized suffering, and also by the fact that your fellow humans doled this violence out on a daily basis, and still do.
A detailed and acute research on the involvement and importance of women in the civil rights movement, this book is also a deep insight into the horrific and widespread use of sexual violence by white men to keep black women silent and to exert dominance. Sexual violence is often used as a weapon in war, we have seen many examples of this in the past and in the present, but the extent of its use in the US, and how it was constantly disregarded by the authorities, or even used against victims, is abhorrent. But these stories must be told because they should never be erased and forgotten.

In addition to being a huge minefield of information, events, and facts that are not taught in history books, this book is an important reminder of how black women’s voices have been consistently erased through time. Their overwhelming role in the Montgomery bus boycott reduced to a mere footnote, the tireless activism years and years before the civil rights movement took off stuffed away in the vaults of an archive, and the work that they continue to do on a daily basis forgotten. There is so much important information in this book, sometimes it actually feels overwhelming and frustrating at the same time because it really should be common knowledge.

I initially got this one from the library, but I bought a copy for myself as I feel like I only scratched the surface by reading it once and need to be able to refer back to it again and again. Can we add this book to the curriculum please? My kids will be asked to read it as soon as they are old enough to.

4 people found this helpful5 people found this helpful

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GinaD

Alternatingly Fascinating & Horrifying: A Great Read

November 13, 2015

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

If you thought that the Civil Rights Movement began in the 1950's or 1960's, that Rosa Parks was a reticent old woman with tired feet, that the movement started suddenly after her refusal to move from her seat on a bus, I urge you to read this. You'll learn:

- that Rosa Parks was raised a Garveyite, and had been an activist and NAACP leader for more than 20 years when she famously refused to move from her seat,
- that this very seat was located on a bus whose driver had (less famously) harassed Ms. Parks 10 years before, and that she also knew E.D. Nixon was searching for a victim of racial violence who was "beyond reproach" to gain national media attention,

and SO much more!

I should add that I usually find history books a little boring, but this was very readable...

6 people found this helpful7 people found this helpful

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Wabu 715

A remarkable untold history of African American women's battles to reclaim their bodies and personhood

January 1, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I bought this book after reading about the death last week of Recy Taylor, the woman whose sexual victimization at the hands of six white men - and a jury of their peers - is the starting point for this historical work. Who was Recy Taylor, I wondered? And why had I never heard her name? McGuire's book tells of the savage acts against Taylor and others, and also sheds light on the reasons their history - and their history of fighting back - has been "lost." Hint: HIS-tory has a lot to do with it. This is an excellent effort to reclaim the significant role Black women played in their own liberation. Though at times tragic, with tales of White on Black violence that are very difficult to read, it is only by understanding the institutionalized violence these women faced that the reader can fully appreciate the enormous courage of Mrs. Taylor and countless others. This is an important book that should be on everyone's shelves and required reading lists.

8 people found this helpful9 people found this helpful

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