Description
Why does white supremacist politics in America remain so powerful? Elizabeth Gillespie McRae argues that the answer lies with white women. Examining racial segregation from 1920s to the 1970s, Mothers of Massive Resistance examines the grassroots workers who upheld the system of racial segregation and Jim Crow. For decades in rural communities, in university towns, and in New South cities, white women performed myriad duties that upheld white over black: censoring textbooks, denying marriage certificates, deciding on the racial identity of their neighbors, celebrating school choice, canvassing communities for votes, and lobbying elected officials. They instilled beliefs in racial hierarchies in their children, built national networks, and experimented with a color-blind political discourse. Without these mundane, everyday acts, white supremacist politics could not have shaped local, regional, and national politics the way it did or lasted as long as it has. With white women at the center of the story, the rise of postwar conservatism looks very different than the male-dominated narratives of the resistance to Civil Rights. Women like Nell Battle Lewis, Florence Sillers Ogden, Mary Dawson Cain, and Cornelia Dabney Tucker publicized their threats to their Jim Crow world through political organizing, private correspondence, and journalism. Their efforts began before World War II and the Brown decision and persisted past the 1964 Civil Rights Act and anti-busing protests. White women's segregationist politics stretched across the nation, overlapping with and shaping the rise of the New Right. Mothers of Massive Resistance reveals the diverse ways white women sustained white supremacist politics and thought well beyond the federal legislation that overturned legal segregation.
About the Author
Elizabeth Gillespie McRae is an associate professor of history and director of graduate social science education programs at Western Carolina University.
Reviews
Readers will find this to be a deeply researched and chronologically impressive account of white conservative women in the twentieth century. While McRae claims a specific focus on four white southern women who were activists in conservative organising, the chapters often extend into broader sketches of rapidly shifting global and national landscapes. The New Deal, world war, the threat of communism, decolonisation, and the civil rights movement provided these women with new approaches to championing the cause of white supremacy. McRae's work highlights the resilience of that position. * Stephanie R. Rolph, English Historical Review *
Mothers of Massive Resistance effectively ties segregationists to the development of conservatism nationally and shows that massive resistance was not a sudden and short-lived response to the Brown decision. * Lisa Lindquist Dorr, Journal of Southern History *
Brilliantly argued...Rather than hewing to southern exceptionalism, McRae explains how segregationist activists connected themselves to national debates...Mothers of Massive Resistance, like other recent books on right-wing women, is part of an important feminist historical project that goes beyond celebrating foremothers to understanding how and why women have helped build oppressive institutions. * Rebecca Hill, Journal of American History *
A valuable addition to the politically urgent study of whiteness in American History. * Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Library Journal, starred review *
Though this is a thoroughly-researched historical study, McRae does not present strictly chronological order, but lets the lives of the women shine forth and parallel the historical events -- local and national, domestic and private -- that they shaped ... McRae is unafraid to plainly state where segregationist and conservative interests and rhetoric overlap and to pinpoint where even academics fail to showcase them. * LaToya Jefferson-James, Arkansas Review *
This is an ambitious and well-written book, and McRae makes compelling case that white southern segregationists had more power to fortify and shape white supremacy and the rise of massive resistance than historians to date have recognized. Readers will find that one of the most striking features of this book is the haunting familiarity of these white supremacist tropes in our current political discourse, evidence that this history is vitally important to the ongoing struggle for racial justice. * Zoe Burkholder, History of Education Quarterly *
Awards
Winner of Winner of the Frederick Jackson Turner Award of the Organization of American Historians Winner of the Society for Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award.
Book Information
ISBN 9780190271718
Author Elizabeth Gillespie McRae
Format Hardback
Page Count 368
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 680g
Dimensions(mm) 160mm * 236mm * 33mm
About the Author
Elizabeth Gillespie McRae is an associate professor of history and director of graduate social science education programs at Western Carolina University.
Reviews
Readers will find this to be a deeply researched and chronologically impressive account of white conservative women in the twentieth century. While McRae claims a specific focus on four white southern women who were activists in conservative organising, the chapters often extend into broader sketches of rapidly shifting global and national landscapes. The New Deal, world war, the threat of communism, decolonisation, and the civil rights movement provided these women with new approaches to championing the cause of white supremacy. McRae's work highlights the resilience of that position. * Stephanie R. Rolph, English Historical Review *
Mothers of Massive Resistance effectively ties segregationists to the development of conservatism nationally and shows that massive resistance was not a sudden and short-lived response to the Brown decision. * Lisa Lindquist Dorr, Journal of Southern History *
Brilliantly argued...Rather than hewing to southern exceptionalism, McRae explains how segregationist activists connected themselves to national debates...Mothers of Massive Resistance, like other recent books on right-wing women, is part of an important feminist historical project that goes beyond celebrating foremothers to understanding how and why women have helped build oppressive institutions. * Rebecca Hill, Journal of American History *
A valuable addition to the politically urgent study of whiteness in American History. * Anna J. Clutterbuck-Cook, Library Journal, starred review *
Though this is a thoroughly-researched historical study, McRae does not present strictly chronological order, but lets the lives of the women shine forth and parallel the historical events -- local and national, domestic and private -- that they shaped ... McRae is unafraid to plainly state where segregationist and conservative interests and rhetoric overlap and to pinpoint where even academics fail to showcase them. * LaToya Jefferson-James, Arkansas Review *
This is an ambitious and well-written book, and McRae makes compelling case that white southern segregationists had more power to fortify and shape white supremacy and the rise of massive resistance than historians to date have recognized. Readers will find that one of the most striking features of this book is the haunting familiarity of these white supremacist tropes in our current political discourse, evidence that this history is vitally important to the ongoing struggle for racial justice. * Zoe Burkholder, History of Education Quarterly *
Awards
Winner of Winner of the Frederick Jackson Turner Award of the Organization of American Historians Winner of the Society for Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award.
Book Information
ISBN 9780190271718
Author Elizabeth Gillespie McRae
Format Hardback
Page Count 368
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 680g
Dimensions(mm) 160mm * 236mm * 33mm
