Soon We Will Not Cry: The Liberation of Ruby Doris Smith Robinson
Cynthia Fleming has recorded the story of one of the civil rights movement's unknown and unsung heroines for the first time. This book will be must reading for scholars and anyone interested in uncovering women's roles in the freedom struggle. (Julian Bond)Ruby Doris Smith (that's how I knew her when she was my student at Spelman College), was a person with a rare power, a rock-like integrity, which moved and inspired countless people in The Movement. This biography accurately captures these qualities, and it should bring this extraordinary young woman to her proper place in the history of our time. (Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States and professor emeritus of Political Science, Boston University)Cynthia Fleming has given us a provocative biography in which the woman whose memory was once a driving force for activists like myself emerges in all her strength, vulnerability, and complexity.Soon We Will Not Cryis a vital addition to civil rights literature. (Angela Y. Davis, University of California, Santa Cruz.)Cynthia Fleming's warm and sophisticated study of truly dynamic young Black woman activist and leader opens a new and important window onto the freedom struggle of the 1960s. (Darlene Clark Hine, Michigan State University)By focusing on Ruby Doris Smith Robinson . . . Fleming offers an insightful look into the lives of young African-American women during the freedom struggle. (American Bookseller)Fleming provides insight not only into Robinson's frustration at the time but also into how submerged gender and racial conflicts can affect group dynamics. Fleming lifts an important activist out of historical neglect while using her life as a base to discuss the concerns of young women like her, who were confronted by racism and sexism within their own organizations. This poignant account provides a glimpse into the life of an extraordinary woman and the prejudices against which she fought. (Publishers Weekly)Fleming's work highlights the courage Ruby Doris brought to the many facets of her work with SNCC, her consistency in the face of external threats and internal organizational conflicts, and her unwavering commitment to the fight against oppression. In the examination of Ruby Doris' roles as activist, leader, student, wife, and mother, Fleming broadens her focus to include the complex issues of race and gender faced by black women activists during those years of struggle and change. (Booklist)The real strength of Flemings' book is its examination of major issues in civil rights, such as SNCC's debate over whether to focus on direct action or voter registration, and whether nonviolence was a philosophy or a tactic. (CHOICE)A superb and meticulous scholarship combined with a natural flair for writing. (Wisconsin Bookwatch)A fine tribute to an energetic and demanding leader.With subtlety and complexity, Fleming shows us how Robinson struggled to control the centrifugal force of the new developments and ideas that overtook SNCC between 1964 and 1967. (Journal of American History)With the publication of this excellent biography, Smith should begin to receive some of the credit she deserves for a life devoted to the civil rights movement.Soon We Will Not Cryis a history of SNCC as much as it is a biography of Smith. Especially valuable is Fleming's sensitive treatment of the issues of gender and sexual relations within SNCC. This is a work that should be read by every serious student of the civil rights movement. (Multicultural Review)For anyone teaching young people who are beginning to make life choices and somehow dream of contributing to a more just world, there couldn't be a more important book. (National Women's Studies Association Journal)This work deserves a serious reading by all persons intersted in the civil rights movement. (The Journal of Southern History)Cynthia Fleming paints an intricate portrait of female leadership in the modern Civil Rights movement. This biography of Ruby Doris Smith Robinson provides and illuminating explanation of the intersection of race, gender, and sex in a major civil rights organization. The book is well written and easy to follow. Anyone interested in the administrative history of the movement will enjoy this biography. This book also makes a valuable contribution to gender studies and to the literature of the Civil Rights movement. (Florida Historical Quarterly)