Civil Rights in Black and Brown
Subtitle: Histories of Resistance and Struggle in Texas
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2021
Language: eng
Number of pages: 469
ISBN-13: 9781477323793
Subjects: America, history
Description: "Since 2014, Max Krochmal and J. Todd Moye have been working with a team of over a dozen historians to travel the state of Texas collecting oral histories of the Civil Rights era, from both African American and Mexican American activists. With financial support from the NEH and Krochmal's and Moye's institutions, the team conducted over 500 interviews, and then wrote essays on the state's small towns, big cities, and places in between. This book features over a dozen such essays that serve, in the editors' words, "to reconstruct the history of the overlapping African American and Chicano/a freedom movements across the Lone Star State. Not one but two insurgencies challenged the state's twin caste systems, and they did so in intimate conversation. They flourished in unlikely places, urban and rural, and spanned decades before and after 1965, continuing into the 21st century. Despite the slow pace of change, activists of all ages forged powerful movements for self-determination. Some filed lawsuits for school integration and canvassed door-to-door to win political power. Others picketed to demand criminal justice reform and sought to improve public services in their cities. Still more activists joined unions and built neighborhood associations to challenge ongoing economic injustice. Organizers pointed out the ways in which integration often failed to produce equity, opting instead to build their own community-controlled healthcare, educational, and cultural institutions. Women played leading roles throughout these various campaigns, challenging the sexism of their comrades as well as that of the larger society. The polyglot activists also developed a variety of relationships with one another, from protracted collaboration to stiff competition--and everything in between." In addition to the oral history essays, the project features overview essays by the editors on each of the three regions treated (East Texas, South and West Texas, and Metropolitan Texas). A fourth section of the manuscript takes readers "inside" the project, explaining how this major collaboration among scholars came together and was executed. It also shares interview excerpts with nearly thirty subjects. (The full text of interviews, along with other supplementary materials, will be available on a dedicated website.)"--