Much of the scholarship on the modern Civil Rights Movement has recaptured dramatic and poignant events through eyewitness accounts and oral narratives—from letters, speeches, newspaper editorials, press releases, and photographs that summon vivid images of fire hoses and police dogs, peaceful protestors and violent rioters. The conventional approach (or master narrative) of civil rights history has focused almost exclusively upon the individual personalities and grassroots organizations that led the fight for equal protection under the law, desegregated lunch counters, and the right to vote in local and national elections. Rather than broaden and deepen our understanding of individual and collective forms of resistance, however, such an approach often simplifies and distorts a much more complex history of black militancy and activism in the United States. Most people come to associate the modern Civil Rights Movement with the famous names, places, and events that made headlines during the turbulent 1950s and 1960s—the murder of Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi; Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott; Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the March on Washington; Bob Moses and Freedom Summer; Gloria Richardson and the Cambridge Movement; and Fannie Lou Hamer at the 1964 National Democratic Convention—and not the ordinary men and women who risked their lives in the face of mob violence.

Only within the last decade have academics, particularly historians and sociologists, begun to examine different movement experiences determined by race, class, sexuality, and gender dynamics. Coeditors Peter J. Ling and Sharon Montieth have brought together a collection of scholarly essays that is radically different from most edited volumes on the modern Civil Rights Movement. Rather than sidestep or avoid some of the most vexing and controversial issues inherent to the movement, this book takes an in-depth look at gender relations. Here, gender is defined in terms of how men and women ought to behave politically, with careful attention paid to cultural and societal expectations, widespread notions of masculinity and femininity, and the types of activities deemed most appropriate for black men and women as they engage in nonviolent, direct action during the 1950s and 1960s. In this sense, gender is a social construct that typically shapes the nature and longevity of interpersonal relationships between and among individual activists who are committed to social justice. Gender as defined here has the potential to influence hierarchical arrangements, crucial mobilization strategies, activist participation, and styles of decision making. It is in this regard that the male chauvinism exhibited by black male clergy toward Miss Ella Baker, which accounted for her departure from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and subsequent involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), becomes illustrative.

Drawing upon new and recent scholarship, Gender and the Civil Rights Movement adds both breadth and depth to the conventional (or master) narrative of civil rights history. Contributors to this volume recognize that the written history of the movement remains incomplete so long as the masses of demonstrators remain undifferentiated and scholars continue to minimize the role and importance of bridge leadership on the local level. Each scholarly essay therefore speaks to the gender bias of civil rights history. With multifaceted and varied approaches that cross disciplines, the book includes an introduction followed by nine chapters (or independent essays) that cross-reference one another and improve the overall readability of related chapters—several of which are absolute page-turners, making them easily accessible to undergraduate and graduate students alike.

Two particularly sophisticated and well-reasoned essays compare the public personas of Daisy Bates and Gloria Richardson with their private lives as they contrast with journalistic accounts. Both women are unsung heroines who neither fit traditionally defined “feminine” roles nor lend themselves to conventional frameworks that seek to restore women activists to the historical record because they performed traditionally prescribed “masculine” roles that ensured their rightful place in civil rights history. In “Daisy Bates, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the 1957 Little Rock School Crisis: A Gendered Perspective,” John A. Kirk asserts that Bates should not go down in history as an “honorary man” simply because she held a titled position with the NAACP, wielded power over its members, made decisions on behalf of the organization, and was perceived by the public as a legitimate leader with formal authority. Instead, Kirk suggests that scholars begin to determine how and why some women, like Bates, were the exception and not the rule during an era when gendered interactions created a particular context in which women participated—typically, behind the scenes. Moreover, he insists that scholars probe more deeply and look beyond spectacular events so as to uncover and explore unique aspects of individual personalities by carefully examining such primary resources as diaries, memoirs, letters, autobiographies, essays, interviews, and speeches.

Similarly, Jenny Walker emphasizes the primacy of rigorous analysis and intellectual inquiry so as not to misrepresent the lives and leadership capabilities of women activists and, at the same time, to avoid the pitfalls that come with designating one a “feminist icon” when issues of gender equity were rarely topics of discussion during the 1950s and 1960s. In “The ‘Gun-Toting’ Gloria Richardson: Black Violence in Cambridge, Maryland,” Walker contends that Richardson should not go down in history as a “feminist icon” when her legacy of civil rights activism has been purposely distorted by some and altogether fabricated by others, as she is often perceived as a woman adverse to nonviolence and passive resistance. Walker pulls no punches in presenting her straightforward critique of Paula Giddings's (1985) work, When and Where I Enter, which wrongly suggests that Richardson came of age in the 1960s and took on the public persona of a “gun-toting” militant. In the end, Walker insists that scholars have relied far too heavily on the print media—both black and white—for civil rights history and readily accepted past historians' false characterizations without the corroboration of primary sources.

Yet another particularly insightful essay suggests that one of the most effective ways to impress upon both undergraduate and graduate students the significance of the modern Civil Rights Movement is to have them read such contemporary fiction novels as And All Our Wounds Forgiven (1994) and Dreamer (1998). In “Revisiting the 1960s in Contemporary Fiction: Where Do We Go From Here?” Montieth critically evaluates the network of images that created romantic heroes out of slain civil rights leaders in these novels. Her detailed and thorough analysis acquaints the reader with the kinds of observations one makes when assessing fictional work that highlights the tensions between different styles of male leadership and the exhibitionism of black masculinity today. In this instance, the fictional representation of such famous Civil Rights leaders as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X provides a means of imagining certain events, interactions, and conflicts that one can use for the basis of class discussion and contextualizing known facts. Whether one is teaching a literature class and trying to incorporate history or teaching a history class using fiction, such an interdisciplinary approach has the potential to enhance the learning process enormously. Students might begin to question why, for example, contemporary novelists continue to codify black leadership as male and masculine—as either a nonviolent, charismatic minister or a black power revolutionary.

Contributors Marissa Chappell, Jenny Hutchinson, and Brian Ward work collaboratively to critically evaluate the network of images that represented middle-class respectability as both a tool of protest and an index of black progress in popular newsmagazines, citing the coverage of Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Montgomery Bus Boycott as a case in point. In respective essays, Ling and Belinda Robnett offer balanced assessments of different leadership styles and hierarchal arrangements that either aided and abetted or limited and prevented women from exerting more power and influence within two distinct Civil Rights organizations—most notably SNCC and SCLC. Ward and Eithne Quinn offer separate analyses of black popular music, from rhythm and blues to hip-hop and gangsta rap, which suggest that debilitating patterns of misogyny and machismo in black popular culture can be tied to the goals and objectives of the modern Civil Rights Movement. Both scholars concede that music was such an integral part of the movement that it can be merged with Civil Rights history to provide students with a broader understanding of the period and possibly show how black popular culture today can similarly be interpreted within the larger context of civil rights struggle. Such thoughtful and creative essays invite new and innovative approaches toward the teaching and study of this groundbreaking movement, particularly those that strike the balance between listening to music and discussing lyrics, reminding us that the quest for equality and justice persists today.

While there may be a growing body of literature on and about various facets of the modern Civil Rights Movement, I am not aware of any single book that offers such a variety of scholarly essays that all share something in common—the focus on gender and the movement—yet are able to stand on their own. This is indeed an important book for those instructors and curriculum specialists who wish to move away from conventional approaches (or master narratives) and adopt a kind of pedagogy that liberates students from a narrow, sanitized version of Civil Rights history. A unique and contrasting feature of this collection of scholarly essays, as compared to other edited volumes on the modern Civil Rights Movement, is that it compels scholars who willfully ignore or deliberately obscure painful and embarrassing aspects of civil rights history to reconsider this fundamentally flawed approach. In view of this, I expect Gender and the Civil Rights Movement to stimulate additional research on the black freedom struggle. I therefore conclude that any scholar or student interested in the movement ought to read this book.