The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History
November 15, 2017
A hard-hitting revisionist history of civil rights activism.Theoharis (Political Science/Brooklyn Coll.; The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, 2013, etc.) argues persuasively that the reality of the civil rights movement has become a benign national fable, invoked by public officials and liberals to assert their "enlightened bona fides" and by critics of activist groups such as Black Lives Matter in an effort to silence them. Central to this fable are distorted images of Rosa Parks, depicted as a quiet, meek woman, and Martin Luther King Jr., whose achievements are attributed to his "loving, nonviolent approach." As activist Julian Bond once put it, "the narrative of the movement has been reduced to 'Rosa sat down, Martin stood up, then the white folks saw the light and saved the day.' " Theoharis strongly believes that turning the civil rights movement into "museum history" promotes the false idea of "an exceptional America moving past its own racism." She also points out that racism is not limited to the South; she shows how the "polite racism" of the North "framed resistance to desegregation in the language of 'neighborhood schools,' 'taxpayer's rights,' and 'forced busing.' " Denying personal animosity toward blacks, Northerners revealed racism in "silence, coded language, and the demonization of dissent." Theoharis takes the media to task for their coverage of uprisings in Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York; reporters, she writes, failed to investigate the "racial inequities embedded in their city's schools, policing, or municipal structures" and presented the violence as a stunning surprise rather than the culmination "of a protracted struggle." Similarly, she criticizes the movie Detroit (2017) for "completely erasing the history of Black life and activism in the city" before the killings depicted. She also criticizes Barack Obama, who as candidate and president warned black men not to use racism as an excuse for personal failure, thereby diverting focus from civil rights organizing to "inward self-help." Chronicling the efforts of many activists, the author underscores her message that reform requires courage and hard work.An impassioned call for continued efforts for change.
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Starred review from December 18, 2017
Theoharis (The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks), professor of political science at Brooklyn College, illuminates how the conventional wisdom about America’s civil rights story erases much of the movement’s radicalism and abounds in comforting clichés. She points out that by the mid-1980s the civil rights movement had become “a way for the nation to feel good about its progress.” Theoharis discusses how focusing on Southern desegregation ignores the physically and emotionally violent controversies that accompanied attempts at greater integration in supposedly liberal Northern cities such as Boston; similarly, depicting white Southerners as racist rednecks obscures the more genteel forms of discrimination practiced by people motivated by “indifference, fear, and personal comfort.” Rosa Parks is famous for having refused to give up her seat on a bus, but she and her fellow activists organized around much broader issues of social justice, many of which remain to be sufficiently addressed. Citizens and politicians of the 21st century revere Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. as heroes, yet many criticize Black Lives Matter activists as unworthy of their memory. Theoharis’s lucid and insightful study challenges that view, proffering a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the civil rights movement’s legacy, and showing how much remains to be done.
Starred review from December 1, 2017
Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. are national icons, memorialized in Washington, DC, and placed at the center of an uplifting story about America's struggle to overcome segregation. But do the popular stories about their lives accurately reflect their beliefs and struggles? Theoharis (The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks) examines the ways that the popular conceptions of the civil rights movement are used to present a history that is incomplete and often directly contradicts the efforts of Parks, King, and the larger movements they helped to lead. Theoharis looks at the initial reactions to the early civil rights movement, comparing the vilification of prominent activists in the 1950s and 1960s to the way that Black Lives Matter protesters are treated today. She highlights the selectivity of media coverage and popular civil rights histories in their focus on a few Southern states, largely ignoring the long-standing, organized protests by African Americans in cities such as New York, Boston, and Los Angeles. VERDICT An important illustration of the ways that history is used, or misused, in modern social and political life. Required reading for anyone hoping to understand more about race relations and racism in the United States and highly recommended for all readers interested in 20th-century American history.--Nicholas Graham, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
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