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audaciaray's review
4.0
Important and compelling history of white supremacy in the twentieth century. In the intro, the author points out that there are many histories of white women in civil rights movement work during this same period, but white women’s significant contributions to perpetuating white supremacy are obscured. This book does that work, naming and documenting white women’s work to maintain segregation in neighborhoods and schools, tracing the political contribution of four different women. The focus on culture making (school textbooks) as well as explicit policy work (school desegregation and busing) puts the domestic and the public spheres in conversation with each other.
adamrshields's review against another edition
4.0
Summary: An investigation of how White women drove policy around segregation and worked to uphold it in their daily lives.
In studying history, there are always different facets to explore. As I study the history of the civil rights movement, I have tended toward big picture history and then the history of significant figures like Martin Luther King Jr, Stokley Carmichael, and Ella Baker. And then I read about less well-known figures like Charles Person and the Atlanta Five. These are worthwhile subjects for studying and important facets of understanding history. But another part of studying history is to study "the villains," not just those we consider heroes from our vantage point. In the case of the Civil Rights Era, it is vital to study not just those that worked to end segregation but those that worked to uphold segregation. Several months ago, I read the very helpful book, The Bible Told Them So, about the theological defense of segregation in North Carolina. The Mothers of Massive Resistance is in that same category of history.
Massive Resistance was a term coined by Senator Harry Byrd in response to Brown v Board of Education. It was a strategy to disrupt integration through vocal and broad resistance to all aspects of integration. Massive Resistance was centered primarily around educational integration but expanded to other areas. The Mothers of Massive Resistance has a simple thesis that white supremacy (the belief in a racial hierarchy with those classified as white at the top) required active participation by white women. It traces the 50-year history of the Civil Rights Era (the 1920s-1970s) and how white women, in their more restrictive and gendered roles, were both drivers and upholders of that white supremacy.
In simple terms, this is easy to understand. White women, in gendered work and home roles, were the front line of the enforcement of the color line. Nurses classified babies into racial categories (categories that were fluid and changed over time.) Women office workers in government upheld segregated rules and identified violaters of the segregated cultural or legal norms. Teachers taught in ways that maintained racial hierarchies before and after official segregation ended, including passing on the mythology of racial hierarchy through history and cultural transmission.
Too often, older histories of the Civil Rights Era were oriented toward telling a solely southern story. Recent histories like A More Beautiful and Terrible History give a more full history of the era by including the more subtle but often more long-lasting ways that northern segregation resisted integration. In many ways, the northern resistance was the most successful front of Massive Resistance. School integration efforts ultimately failed in many northern school districts that tended to be smaller. Changing district boundaries following residential segregation boundaries was an effective method to prevent school integration, especially for those schools that resisted integration until the mid-1970s when federal integration efforts were largely abandoned, and the courts overturned bussing plans, especially those plans that crossed district boundaries.
What is more important to me about books exploring the segregationist sides of the civil rights era is understanding the origins of rhetoric and how overt segregationist and white supremacist rhetorics subtlely changed to colorblind but still segregationist-oriented language. For example, in the 1950s, there was overt use of the good of "White Supremacy" using that term. By the 1970s, the rhetoric had shifted to safety, school quality, and the character of neighborhoods. Since the 1970s, the rhetoric has not changed much, and with historical context, it is easy to see how very similar phrases track over time.
In the 1990s, Democrats reached out to "soccer mom" to expand their coalition. But after 2001, those soccer moms became "security moms" and shifted their voting to republican national candidates. (I am drawing on a podcast and article by Melissa Wear for some of these ideas.) This parallels thoughts in Mothers of Massive Resistance about how many women were upholding white supremacy in response to fears of communism. The rise of communism and the cold war and the ways that the civil rights movement was labeled as communist by segregationists as a means of stoking fear is very much similar to both the CRT debates today and the post-9/11 anti-immigration rhetoric of the early 2000s. Knowing the history makes it easy to assess how these fears are stoked. But the pressures of motherhood and the fears of not being a "good-enough" mother (or father) continue. Even today, many white parents express support theoretically for school and community racial integration but only on limited terms.
I regularly talk about how my kids go to the school where my wife teaches, not the one they are zoned for. The school is about 12-15 minutes from our home, depending on traffic, but it is in the same school district. The school my children attend is 90% minority (primarily Black and Hispanic, but some Asian as well) and about 70% low-income. About a half mile away, there is another elementary school in the same school district. That school has 11% Black or Hispanic students and 7% low-income students. The boundaries have been stable for decades and are primarily upheld by residential zoning. My kids' school boundaries are almost entirely multifamily units, mostly apartments, while the other school is almost entirely detached single-family housing. Even today, it is primarily the role of women that upholds school and housing policies. While overt racial concerns rarely maintain those boundaries, other issues like property values and school quality continue to dominate the rhetoric around the maintenance of boundaries that have their roots in the segregated era.
It is less 'encouraging' to read books about segregationists. Still, it is helpful to unmask the origins of our current problems to look back to history and see the forces that shaped the current context.
In studying history, there are always different facets to explore. As I study the history of the civil rights movement, I have tended toward big picture history and then the history of significant figures like Martin Luther King Jr, Stokley Carmichael, and Ella Baker. And then I read about less well-known figures like Charles Person and the Atlanta Five. These are worthwhile subjects for studying and important facets of understanding history. But another part of studying history is to study "the villains," not just those we consider heroes from our vantage point. In the case of the Civil Rights Era, it is vital to study not just those that worked to end segregation but those that worked to uphold segregation. Several months ago, I read the very helpful book, The Bible Told Them So, about the theological defense of segregation in North Carolina. The Mothers of Massive Resistance is in that same category of history.
Massive Resistance was a term coined by Senator Harry Byrd in response to Brown v Board of Education. It was a strategy to disrupt integration through vocal and broad resistance to all aspects of integration. Massive Resistance was centered primarily around educational integration but expanded to other areas. The Mothers of Massive Resistance has a simple thesis that white supremacy (the belief in a racial hierarchy with those classified as white at the top) required active participation by white women. It traces the 50-year history of the Civil Rights Era (the 1920s-1970s) and how white women, in their more restrictive and gendered roles, were both drivers and upholders of that white supremacy.
In simple terms, this is easy to understand. White women, in gendered work and home roles, were the front line of the enforcement of the color line. Nurses classified babies into racial categories (categories that were fluid and changed over time.) Women office workers in government upheld segregated rules and identified violaters of the segregated cultural or legal norms. Teachers taught in ways that maintained racial hierarchies before and after official segregation ended, including passing on the mythology of racial hierarchy through history and cultural transmission.
Too often, older histories of the Civil Rights Era were oriented toward telling a solely southern story. Recent histories like A More Beautiful and Terrible History give a more full history of the era by including the more subtle but often more long-lasting ways that northern segregation resisted integration. In many ways, the northern resistance was the most successful front of Massive Resistance. School integration efforts ultimately failed in many northern school districts that tended to be smaller. Changing district boundaries following residential segregation boundaries was an effective method to prevent school integration, especially for those schools that resisted integration until the mid-1970s when federal integration efforts were largely abandoned, and the courts overturned bussing plans, especially those plans that crossed district boundaries.
What is more important to me about books exploring the segregationist sides of the civil rights era is understanding the origins of rhetoric and how overt segregationist and white supremacist rhetorics subtlely changed to colorblind but still segregationist-oriented language. For example, in the 1950s, there was overt use of the good of "White Supremacy" using that term. By the 1970s, the rhetoric had shifted to safety, school quality, and the character of neighborhoods. Since the 1970s, the rhetoric has not changed much, and with historical context, it is easy to see how very similar phrases track over time.
In the 1990s, Democrats reached out to "soccer mom" to expand their coalition. But after 2001, those soccer moms became "security moms" and shifted their voting to republican national candidates. (I am drawing on a podcast and article by Melissa Wear for some of these ideas.) This parallels thoughts in Mothers of Massive Resistance about how many women were upholding white supremacy in response to fears of communism. The rise of communism and the cold war and the ways that the civil rights movement was labeled as communist by segregationists as a means of stoking fear is very much similar to both the CRT debates today and the post-9/11 anti-immigration rhetoric of the early 2000s. Knowing the history makes it easy to assess how these fears are stoked. But the pressures of motherhood and the fears of not being a "good-enough" mother (or father) continue. Even today, many white parents express support theoretically for school and community racial integration but only on limited terms.
I regularly talk about how my kids go to the school where my wife teaches, not the one they are zoned for. The school is about 12-15 minutes from our home, depending on traffic, but it is in the same school district. The school my children attend is 90% minority (primarily Black and Hispanic, but some Asian as well) and about 70% low-income. About a half mile away, there is another elementary school in the same school district. That school has 11% Black or Hispanic students and 7% low-income students. The boundaries have been stable for decades and are primarily upheld by residential zoning. My kids' school boundaries are almost entirely multifamily units, mostly apartments, while the other school is almost entirely detached single-family housing. Even today, it is primarily the role of women that upholds school and housing policies. While overt racial concerns rarely maintain those boundaries, other issues like property values and school quality continue to dominate the rhetoric around the maintenance of boundaries that have their roots in the segregated era.
It is less 'encouraging' to read books about segregationists. Still, it is helpful to unmask the origins of our current problems to look back to history and see the forces that shaped the current context.
nickjagged's review against another edition
4.0
A tour-de-force on the movements, tactics, and philosophies undergirding massive resistance to segregation. Very enlightening, as the majority of work on Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement tends to treat women as passive actors, almost as sock puppets. This pernicious tale obscures the way that segregation and white supremacy was actively fought for by white women over the better part of a century, following Reconstruction. The level of investment in White Supremacy and the lengths to which white women went to beat back and shore up against any steps towards racial equality is astounding, and this book is a corrective to the lack of awareness towards these actors.
danacoledares's review
3.0
Given the title, I would really have liked to see how class played into this. These do not seem to be young firebrands or full-time employees. They're ladies of the neighborhood who have well-established social status; housewives, mothers, and church ladies who disguise their political activism as community involvement. Definitely some lessons to be learned.
tking08's review
4.0
I read this book for one of my summer classes and I thought it was very informative while also being fairly engaging. It’s a long read due to the nature of the content but it’s a good read!
worldlibraries's review
3.0
Because this is a dense, and highly academic read, I am only giving it three stars. I wish the book was written in a style that would make it easier for the general public to read so it could have a greater impact. I feel Ms. McRae wrote for her academic peers. Give us more story, please.
The book examined the 'gardening' white women did to maintain white supremacy during the 20th century up until 1970. Because it was so good at helping the reader see through the euphemisms white women used to reach racialized ends without using racialized language, I wish it had covered up until the present day. What are white women saying today that are euphemisms for achieving racialized ends without using racialized language? We need to know! A sequel is in order. I bet quite a bit of it would be related to charter schools and carefully curating children of color into charter school populations.
I picked this book up with some trepidation as a white woman. Would I see myself in this book? I shouldn't have worried. There were basically these kinds of white women resisting integration: the plantation owner still wanting low-cost labor to exploit, bureaucrats ruining peoples lives by labeling them as black (instead of honoring their indigenous heritage) thereby changing the entire trajectory of families, the paternalistic mid-century white woman who felt she and her sisters should 'look after' and speak for black people, the suburban woman who worried about property values and moved away from city neighborhoods, and the working class woman who made black families lives at integrated schools a living hell by bullying them and mistreating them.
This was the first time I have ever learned that the reason conservatives protest UN membership is they are scared of being a global minority as white people. The reason isn't giving up American sovereignty as they suggest.
I'm glad to have read this book so I as an individual can contribute as much as possible to a more perfect union.
The book examined the 'gardening' white women did to maintain white supremacy during the 20th century up until 1970. Because it was so good at helping the reader see through the euphemisms white women used to reach racialized ends without using racialized language, I wish it had covered up until the present day. What are white women saying today that are euphemisms for achieving racialized ends without using racialized language? We need to know! A sequel is in order. I bet quite a bit of it would be related to charter schools and carefully curating children of color into charter school populations.
I picked this book up with some trepidation as a white woman. Would I see myself in this book? I shouldn't have worried. There were basically these kinds of white women resisting integration: the plantation owner still wanting low-cost labor to exploit, bureaucrats ruining peoples lives by labeling them as black (instead of honoring their indigenous heritage) thereby changing the entire trajectory of families, the paternalistic mid-century white woman who felt she and her sisters should 'look after' and speak for black people, the suburban woman who worried about property values and moved away from city neighborhoods, and the working class woman who made black families lives at integrated schools a living hell by bullying them and mistreating them.
This was the first time I have ever learned that the reason conservatives protest UN membership is they are scared of being a global minority as white people. The reason isn't giving up American sovereignty as they suggest.
I'm glad to have read this book so I as an individual can contribute as much as possible to a more perfect union.
k8iedid's review
5.0
I found it so interesting to learn how *organized* these racist white ladies were - nothing happening today should surprise us when we take a peek at history. These school board issues have always been there, they just had different names. I saw one reviewer call this book "dry" and I found it anything but.
sunshinemilk's review
1.0
I hated this book and not for the reason you may think.
While this is full of atrocious true history, I don’t understand why Mcrae, who would be considered an aryan princess by the alt-right, wrote this? Why would this white, blonde, blue-eyed woman write a book to profit in multiple ways off of the atrocities that white women have done? No need to answer.
Listening to the audiobook was double the nightmare as another white woman is narrating this slur filled book.
You can find this information elsewhere while supporting the Black families that were actually affected during this time and I highly suggest we all do that. Thankfully this was free from the library.
While this is full of atrocious true history, I don’t understand why Mcrae, who would be considered an aryan princess by the alt-right, wrote this? Why would this white, blonde, blue-eyed woman write a book to profit in multiple ways off of the atrocities that white women have done? No need to answer.
Listening to the audiobook was double the nightmare as another white woman is narrating this slur filled book.
You can find this information elsewhere while supporting the Black families that were actually affected during this time and I highly suggest we all do that. Thankfully this was free from the library.