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Boston : Beacon Press, [2018]
Description
The civil rights movement has become national legend, lauded by presidents from Reagan to Obama to Trump, as proof of the power of American democracy. This fable, featuring dreamy heroes and accidental heroines, has shuttered the movement firmly in the past, whitewashed the forces that stood in its way, and diminished its scope. And it is used perniciously in our own times to chastise present-day movements and obscure contemporary injustice. In A More Beautiful and Terrible History, award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis dissects this national myth-making, teasing apart the accepted stories to show them in a strikingly different light. We see Rosa Parks not simply as a bus lady but a lifelong criminal justice activist and radical; Martin Luther King, Jr. as not only challenging Southern sheriffs but Northern liberals, too; and Coretta Scott King not only as a "helpmate" but a lifelong economic justice and peace activist who pushed her husband's activism in these directions. Moving from "the histories we get" to "the histories we need," Theoharis challenges nine key aspects of the fable to reveal the diversity of people, especially women and young people, who led the movement; the work and disruption it took; the role of the media and "polite racism" in maintaining injustice; and the immense barriers and repression activists faced. Theoharis makes us reckon with the fact that far from being acceptable, passive or unified, the civil rights movement was unpopular, disruptive, and courageously persevering. Activists embraced an expansive vision of justice--which a majority of Americans opposed and which the federal government feared. By showing us the complex reality of the movement, the power of its organizing, and the beauty and scope of the vision, Theoharis proves that there was nothing natural or inevitable about the progress that occurred.--Dust jacket.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member mdbrady
A powerful account of the Civil Rights Movement in all its "terrible beauty" and an analysis of how that history is already being watered down and misused.
Jeanne Theoharis is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College. She has published on Civil Rights, race, and social
Theoharis is concerned about how recent politicians and pundits are nostalgically comparing the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s with similar movements today as if the former protests were better because they were quieter and less disruptive. She displays abundant evident that this view is simply not true. Taking her title from the words of James Baldwin, she reminds us of the anger and disruptive force of earlier years, often telling stories that we have conveniently forgotten or never understood. In the process, she reveals the common threads of then and now and encourages readers to speak out despite allies who would silence them.
Early chapters in the book address the way in which long ongoing activism lay behind the activism of the 1950s and 1960s. If white people had known the history of their own towns and regions, they would not have been “surprised” when protesters appeared. Theoharis fleshes out the actions of Rosa Parks and others in Montgomery long before the Boycott. She also describes how even Martin Luther King angered whites and some blacks who feared what might be lost in the response to open opposition.zi
As Theoharis explains race relations in Northern and Western cities always were distorted as opponents used different words to keep the Civil Rights Movement confined to the South. She focuses on Los Angeles, Boston, and Detroit, where the protest of blacks had long gone ignored until they burst out in violence. She also devotes chapters highlighting the young people in the movement and women's roles. Instead of repeating the emerging stories of rural women organizers, she reveals the roles of women in the 1963 March on Washington and the exclusion of them by the black male leaders.
I recommend this book to all readers. In telling her stories, Theoharis opened my eyes to events I had never known about, even though I have researched and taught African American History. It is simply an enjoyable taste of history at its most truthful and beautiful. Once she pointed it out, I immediately saw the numerous ways in which we are minimizing the power of the Movement.
Beacon Press merits congratulations for publishing three excellent books of African American history this spring that will be welcome by teachers, scholars, and the general public. All three can help us regain a more accurate vision of the actual character of the Civil Rights Movement at a time when that vision is being sentimentalized and “white washed.” I will be reviewing all three this week so you can check out the others.
A More Beautiful and Terrible History, Jeanne Theoharis.
An African American and Latinx History of the United States, by Paul Oritz.
History Teaches Us to Resist, by Mary Francis Berry.
Civil
Jeanne Theoharis is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College. She has published on Civil Rights, race, and social
Show More
welfare. Her book, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, was especially well received. In it she introduced some the themes which shape her latest book.Theoharis is concerned about how recent politicians and pundits are nostalgically comparing the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s with similar movements today as if the former protests were better because they were quieter and less disruptive. She displays abundant evident that this view is simply not true. Taking her title from the words of James Baldwin, she reminds us of the anger and disruptive force of earlier years, often telling stories that we have conveniently forgotten or never understood. In the process, she reveals the common threads of then and now and encourages readers to speak out despite allies who would silence them.
Early chapters in the book address the way in which long ongoing activism lay behind the activism of the 1950s and 1960s. If white people had known the history of their own towns and regions, they would not have been “surprised” when protesters appeared. Theoharis fleshes out the actions of Rosa Parks and others in Montgomery long before the Boycott. She also describes how even Martin Luther King angered whites and some blacks who feared what might be lost in the response to open opposition.zi
As Theoharis explains race relations in Northern and Western cities always were distorted as opponents used different words to keep the Civil Rights Movement confined to the South. She focuses on Los Angeles, Boston, and Detroit, where the protest of blacks had long gone ignored until they burst out in violence. She also devotes chapters highlighting the young people in the movement and women's roles. Instead of repeating the emerging stories of rural women organizers, she reveals the roles of women in the 1963 March on Washington and the exclusion of them by the black male leaders.
I recommend this book to all readers. In telling her stories, Theoharis opened my eyes to events I had never known about, even though I have researched and taught African American History. It is simply an enjoyable taste of history at its most truthful and beautiful. Once she pointed it out, I immediately saw the numerous ways in which we are minimizing the power of the Movement.
Beacon Press merits congratulations for publishing three excellent books of African American history this spring that will be welcome by teachers, scholars, and the general public. All three can help us regain a more accurate vision of the actual character of the Civil Rights Movement at a time when that vision is being sentimentalized and “white washed.” I will be reviewing all three this week so you can check out the others.
A More Beautiful and Terrible History, Jeanne Theoharis.
An African American and Latinx History of the United States, by Paul Oritz.
History Teaches Us to Resist, by Mary Francis Berry.
Civil
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LibraryThing member NadineC.Keels
This history is humbling—showing how hard it is to do the right thing and exposing the many barriers to unseating the status quo. It reveals that the perpetration of injustice is not always about hatred but often about indifference, fear, and personal comfort.
My goodness. A More Beautiful and
This narrative speaks on the tendency for many Americans to relegate the civil rights movement to something that’s (safely) behind us. It speaks on the tendency for people to applaud figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks while separating them from the totality of their messages, from their anger, from the fact that they were controversial and that the civil rights movement was disruptive and unpopular to most Americans at the time. If we now reduce Rosa Parks to a sweet, quiet lady who sat meekly on a bus one day, and we strip her of her years of politics and activism and most of what she actually said, we can comfortably celebrate her without being challenged by her anymore.
This book puts clear language to ideas I’ve been chewing on, including how racism isn’t merely about people’s feelings, that as long as enough individuals don’t feel or express personal malice toward people of color, then social injustice in America is no longer a real or serious problem.
My one issue with the reading was that it often seemed redundant, repeating the same information or quotes in places or using different words to make the same points over again. I also wasn’t able to comb through all of it (time constraints with a borrowed copy), but this is the kind of book I’d have no problem revisiting.
America has much more work to do for civil rights, and it’ll take having an accurate view of our history.
My goodness. A More Beautiful and
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Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History by Jeanne Theoharis. I’ll admit it’s hard for me to review a book like this because I wish I could write down each strong, thought-provoking, or challenging point the author makes.This narrative speaks on the tendency for many Americans to relegate the civil rights movement to something that’s (safely) behind us. It speaks on the tendency for people to applaud figures like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks while separating them from the totality of their messages, from their anger, from the fact that they were controversial and that the civil rights movement was disruptive and unpopular to most Americans at the time. If we now reduce Rosa Parks to a sweet, quiet lady who sat meekly on a bus one day, and we strip her of her years of politics and activism and most of what she actually said, we can comfortably celebrate her without being challenged by her anymore.
This book puts clear language to ideas I’ve been chewing on, including how racism isn’t merely about people’s feelings, that as long as enough individuals don’t feel or express personal malice toward people of color, then social injustice in America is no longer a real or serious problem.
My one issue with the reading was that it often seemed redundant, repeating the same information or quotes in places or using different words to make the same points over again. I also wasn’t able to comb through all of it (time constraints with a borrowed copy), but this is the kind of book I’d have no problem revisiting.
America has much more work to do for civil rights, and it’ll take having an accurate view of our history.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Nero56
I received a copy of this book as an Early Reviewer from LibraryThing and the publisher.
This is an important book but not an easy or perfect one. Theoharis points out the hypocrisies in our current teachings of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.as THE Civil Rights movement, of ignoring the
Some of the less than perfect aspects of this book included the formatting. Instead of meeting these issues chronologically, the reader finds the book sectioned by education, media, etc. The problem is that several sentences are picked up word by word from one section and repeated in another providing a "repetitive" reading experience. This book also reads like an academic text which could definitely cause some consternation in the casual reader. While Theodakis did a wonderful job of highlighting the women involved in the movement, while she mentions Black Lives Matters, she does not acknowledge the leadership provided by provided by its founding women. It would also have been interesting to hear more about what exactly students are being taught from a student's viewpoint. The Author maintains that we are teaching Civil Rights as if the movement ended at the Voting Rights Act and Brown vs Board of Education; however, doesn't seem to have a plan for education of students on why Malcolm X, The Black Panthers, and continued systemic racism as evidenced by the continued police shootings and "unpatriotic" rhetoric against Black Lives Matter activists is important.
Overall, this is an important and worthwhile read.
This is an important book but not an easy or perfect one. Theoharis points out the hypocrisies in our current teachings of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.as THE Civil Rights movement, of ignoring the
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decades of organized struggle by many people. Teaching the history of Parks and King as one act of defiance and one great speech is detrimental to our understanding of the movement and to the politics and movements of today in the author's view. Ignoring the fact that at the time of these actions, these two heroes were reviled much more than respected and that their actions brought upon them a sense of isolation and economic hardships which lasted for years is to gloss over the hardships of activism. She points out the hypocrisies in Northern reports on Southern racism while segregation and "busing" issues were alive and strong in New York and Boston, two cities long believed to be the home of liberalism. Theoharis does a wonderful job of spotlighting the long years of struggle and organizing which took place, sometimes unsuccessfully, in the name of freedom and some of the unknown activists who spent their lives, and sometimes lost their lives in this ongoing struggle. This book is also one of the few books on the Civil Rights Movement that highlighted the many women who supported and sometimes led the movement. Some of the less than perfect aspects of this book included the formatting. Instead of meeting these issues chronologically, the reader finds the book sectioned by education, media, etc. The problem is that several sentences are picked up word by word from one section and repeated in another providing a "repetitive" reading experience. This book also reads like an academic text which could definitely cause some consternation in the casual reader. While Theodakis did a wonderful job of highlighting the women involved in the movement, while she mentions Black Lives Matters, she does not acknowledge the leadership provided by provided by its founding women. It would also have been interesting to hear more about what exactly students are being taught from a student's viewpoint. The Author maintains that we are teaching Civil Rights as if the movement ended at the Voting Rights Act and Brown vs Board of Education; however, doesn't seem to have a plan for education of students on why Malcolm X, The Black Panthers, and continued systemic racism as evidenced by the continued police shootings and "unpatriotic" rhetoric against Black Lives Matter activists is important.
Overall, this is an important and worthwhile read.
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LibraryThing member chgstrom
This book was eye-opening. We so often celebrate the civil rights movement of the 1960s, but we don’t always look at the big picture. This book talks about how the North was slow to change their own racism, while at the same time, condemning the South for theirs. It also talks about how youth and
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women were not given all the credit they deserved for their work. I learned a lot! Show Less
LibraryThing member CarolineMCarrico
Theoharis provides a scholarly account of the often skewed nature of civil rights commemorations and popular histories. In the process, she recounts the reality that "good" civil rights leaders were considered radicals at the times of their protests. She also does an admirable job connecting the
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historic movement of the 1950s and 1960s to the Black Lives Matter, Fight for $15 and similar civil rights movements today. Show Less
LibraryThing member mcelhra
A More Beautiful and Terrible History takes aim the revisionist history of the civil rights movement that we are taught as children in school and that has become the standard narrative. As someone who didn’t live through that time period, I found it incredibly enlightening. I think even people
This book also discusses the prominent civil rights figures of that era and public perception of them back then versus now. Rosa Parks was not just a tired black woman who stayed in her bus seat on a whim. There was strategy and planning behind her decision. The lengths that people in the movement had to go to in order to make the Montgomery bus boycott work were amazing. Also, Martin Luther King, Jr. was not always well-liked. His approval ratings were actually quite low at points. His wife Coretta was also a central figure in the movement, not just a standing by her man wife.
A More Beautiful and Terrible History is a must read. I wish that everyone who is part of the “Why don’t they just get over it and pull themselves up by their bootstraps?” club would read it so they could see how white people have been systematically taking away black people’s boots for years in ALL areas of the country. I’m very glad I read this book and recommend it to everyone.
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who did live through it will learn a lot because much of what was happening back then wasn’t reported accurately by the media. For instance, northern schools were just as segregated as southern schools. However, the northern segregation wasn’t codified and the school districts had all kinds of ways of getting around de-segregation. Jim Crow was not just a southern phenomenon. Another thing that was happening back then all over the country was the shooting of unarmed black men. It was easier to sweep under the rug with no cell phone videos or social media.This book also discusses the prominent civil rights figures of that era and public perception of them back then versus now. Rosa Parks was not just a tired black woman who stayed in her bus seat on a whim. There was strategy and planning behind her decision. The lengths that people in the movement had to go to in order to make the Montgomery bus boycott work were amazing. Also, Martin Luther King, Jr. was not always well-liked. His approval ratings were actually quite low at points. His wife Coretta was also a central figure in the movement, not just a standing by her man wife.
A More Beautiful and Terrible History is a must read. I wish that everyone who is part of the “Why don’t they just get over it and pull themselves up by their bootstraps?” club would read it so they could see how white people have been systematically taking away black people’s boots for years in ALL areas of the country. I’m very glad I read this book and recommend it to everyone.
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LibraryThing member GaryLeeJones
This book,like her her earlier book _The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks_, shows Theoharis to be solid researcher of important elements of the struggle for civil rights in the U. S. and a perceptive critic of the cultural manipulations of public perceptions of racism. I found this one harder to
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read than the Parks book, however, because of needlessly complex and convoluted sentence structures. Still, very informative and thought-provoking. Show Less
LibraryThing member rivkat
This would’ve made a great 10,000 word essay, and is possibly adapted from a series of speeches/papers, which might explain the repetition of anecdotes and arguments. The core argument is clearly correct: when people condemn Black Lives Matter and compare modern freedom movements unfavorably with
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the civil rights movement because of the latter’s supposedly more uniting tactics, they are ignoring the real history, which is that King and Parks were highly unpopular with whites, and controversial even among some African-Americans, while they were in the midst of demanding justice. Also, there were long struggles in the North and the South, instead of transformative moments in which real Americans realized that racism was bad. Northern whites in particular seized on the rhetoric of cultural disadvantage to explain why Brown v. Board didn’t mean that their kids had to go to school with black and brown kids, and busing had been used in Boston for many years before desegregation—indeed, busing had been a tool of segregation so that whites and blacks living within a block of one another got different schools. (By the way, the black schools were so overcrowded that the school board proposed doing half-day shifts—they didn’t propose letting the kids go to less crowded white schools, though.) Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize (Longlist — Nonfiction — 2018)
Language
Physical description
xxv, 253 p.; 24 cm
ISBN
9780807063484