McGuire, Danielle L. At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance–a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010.
While walking home from church late at night in Abbeville, Alabama, in 1944, two African American women and one of their teenage sons were stopped by seven white men in a green Chevy. The men accused one of the women, Recy Taylor, of harming a white boy with a knife. The men did not accept Taylor’s pleas of innocence, kidnapped her, violently raped her, then left her on the side of a highway. In her book At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance–a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power, Danielle McGuire used the story of Recy Taylor as a case study representative of her larger argument. Throughout the book, McGuire examined a variety of stories that showed how rape and resistance were the driving force of the civil rights movement, but she continually alluded back to Taylor, even devoting the epilogue of the book to her and Taylor’s shared experience as they watched the inauguration of President Obama. In examining the black community’s reaction to the violence against Recy Taylor and other women, McGuire argued that the civil rights movement was founded on the pursuit of justice for sexually assaulted black women. McGuire’s At the Dark End of the Street is an important contribution to historiography on the civil rights movement, as well as a unique and compelling new perspective on the origins and motives of one of the most successful social movements in history.
McGuire also emphasized a variety of other themes throughout the book. One prevalent idea is how black women raised support for themselves and each other long before the women’s movement: “decades before radical feminists in the women’s movement urged rape survivors to ‘speak out,’ African-American women’s public protests galvanized local, national, and even international outrage and sparked larger campaigns for racial justice and human dignity” (McGuire, xix). In At the Dark End of the Street, McGuire argued for a longer civil rights movement than past histories have described, a rising trend in civil rights historiography. While most civil rights historians consider the social movement to have started in 1955 with Brown v. Board and the Montgomery bus boycott, McGuire claimed that the Montgomery bus boycott was a culmination of years of struggle. Another recurring theme throughout the book was McGuire’s semi-successful attempts at reframing and decentralizing certain historical figures. In the first third of the book, McGuire contrasted popular opinions on Rosa Parks with her actual biography. Later on, McGuire described how women’s efforts in the civil rights movement were obscured, redirected, and erased by the movement’s placement of “baby-faced Baptist preacher” Martin Luther King, Jr. in the spotlight, successfully decentralizing King and shining light on the forgotten women (McGuire, 89).
At the Dark End of the Street had nine chapters that can be grouped into four themes. The first trend consisted of the prologue, the first chapter of the book, “They’d Kill Me if I Told,” and the epilogue, “We All Lived in Fear for Years.” McGuire discussed Recy Taylor’s case and the nationwide consequences it had on civil rights and the women’s movement. McGuire used Taylor’s case to show that the only way to get justice for black women who were raped by white men in the 1940s and 50s was to draw outside attention to crime. This first chapter was incredibly important to the rest of the book, as McGuire used Recy Taylor’s story as a case study for arguments she made about the importance of sexual violence to the civil rights movement. The prologue and the epilogue functioned to get the reader to empathize with Recy Taylor by describing what happened to her and showing how her life progressed beyond her attack and national recognition.
The second theme is the Montgomery bus boycott, described in chapter two, “Negroes Every Day Are Being Molested,” and chapter three, “Walking in Pride and Dignity.” This section of the book focused on women’s presence as the foundation and backbone of the boycott, as well as how their work was overshadowed by the male leaders of civil rights organizations. McGuire assembled a new understanding of the bus boycott. The bus boycott was about more than civil rights, “it was also a women’s movement for dignity, respect, and bodily integrity” (McGuire, 43). McGuire also explained how the success of the bus boycott gave black women confidence. She quoted an African American domestic worker to show these changing attitudes on white threats: “Look at dem red bastards over der watching us. Dey got dem guns, but us aint skered. I don’t mind dying, but I sho take one of dem with me” (McGuire, 93).
Both of these sections focused on reframing Rosa Parks. The first chapter of the book begins with a biographical overview of Parks’ heritage and childhood in Abbeville, which was used to connect Parks to Taylor before Parks arrived in Abbeville to investigate Taylor’s case. McGuire claimed that Parks was a leading organizer for Taylor’s campaign for justice, but did not cite any specific actions Parks took other than “wrote letters, signed petitions, and sent postcards in an effort to secure justice for Recy Taylor” (McGuire, 20). While Parks clearly had a role in Taylor’s quest for justice, it is difficult to agree with McGuire’s claim that Parks was a leading organizer based on McGuire’s evidence. However, McGuire’s statements on Parks in the second section on the bus boycott were much more convincing. McGuire’s use of primary sources to portray the civil rights leader’s opinions of Parks, as well as McGuire’s description of how the leadership of the boycott was stolen from the hands of women like Parks and Jo Ann Robinson easily convince the reader of a different, more tough version of Parks than the version that is taught in history classes.
The next section of the book focused on sex and the civil rights movement, as well as white backlash to civil rights achievements. It consists of chapter four, “There’s Open Season on Negroes Now,” chapter six, “A Black Woman’s Body Was Never Hers Alone,” and chapter seven, “Sex and Civil Rights.” Chapter four examined the southern white response to school integration and made important connections to international problems and conversations. Chapter four was strong, but chapters six and seven were the weakest in the book. While chapters six and seven contribute to McGuire’s claims and argument, they do not pack the same punch as some of the other more compelling chapters. The strongest part of this section was McGuire’s statement about federal intervention concerning school integration in chapter four: “by the next day the fierce and flinty paratroopers, from the unit that had stood up to the Nazi Wehrmacht and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, stared down the segregationists and escorted Melba Patillo and eight others to class” (McGuire, 129). These chapters reinforced the racism and fear prevalent in the white south, but chapters six and seven fell short in introducing new relevant themes and arguments.
Finally, the last theme of the book discussed the history of the importance of a black woman’s reputation if she were to receive justice. This section includes chapter five, “It Was Like All of Us Had Been Raped,” and chapter eight, “Power to the Ice Pick!” Chapters one and three are also relevant to this theme. Recy Taylor had a good reputation, but the court did not rule in her favor. In chapter three, McGuire discussed how Claudette Coleman refused to vacate her seat on a bus before Rosa Parks did, but Coleman’s reputation was bad and civil rights leaders did not consider her a viable spokesperson for the movement, which ruined her chances for justice. Chapter five told the story of Betty Jean Owens. Owens was kidnapped and raped by four white men. She had a good reputation, and her trial was the first to declare white men guilty for the rape of a black woman. In chapter eight, Joan Little is declared innocent after murdering a prison guard who attempted to rape her. Little had been in and out of prison for years for a variety of crimes, but received justice despite her reputation.
Undoubtedly, the strongest chapter in At the Dark End of the Street was “It Was Like All of Us Had Been Raped.” McGuire did a brilliant job of telling Owen’s story in a compelling way. McGuire described the trial in patches throughout the chapter, pausing the story to include relevant historical context about the area or previous interracial rape trials. The chapter also connected beautifully to the themes present throughout the rest of the book. Chapter eight was fairly strong as well, especially in the way it concluded the examination of the relationship between public reputation and justice. Joan Little’s story, while compelling and strengthened McGuire’s argument, was not entirely convincing. McGuire argued that Little’s acquittal was due to changing attitudes concerning rape, justice, and the reputation of black women. This was undoubtedly true, but McGuire withheld giving credit where it was due–Little’s legal team was brilliant. McGuire stated as much in the chapter, but by attributing Little’s acquittal almost entirely to changing attitudes, McGuire failed to impart the indispensability of Little’s team.
Danielle McGuire is an independent scholar and distinguished lecturer for the Organization of American Historians from Detroit, Michigan. At the Dark End of the Street is her first book and it won the Frederick Jackson Turner Award and the Lillian Smith Book Award. She has essays published in a variety of journals and is currently working on her second book, Murder in the Motor City: The 1967 Detroit Riot and American Injustice. McGuire’s bibliography for At the Dark End of the Street was extensive and almost overwhelming. McGuire conducted an enormous amount of research for the book, visiting 24 archives, conducting 29 interviews, and citing a collection of newspapers, books, and other sources. All of these sources were well-utilized, and one would not have to check the bibliography to know that the book is well-researched.
Throughout the book, McGuire established her arguments and evidence through a narrative format. Every chapter began with an anecdote to reflect the content and argument of the section. The titles of the chapters were compelling and intriguing, which also added to the narrative aspect of the book. Finally, McGuire’s use of ‘prologue’ and ‘epilogue’ instead of ‘introduction’ and ‘conclusion’ was the cherry on top of this narrative style. One thing that could have been improved was the organization in the book. McGuire structured the book in a chronological order. While chronology aids the reader in understanding succession and timelines, having larger groupings would help the reader understand this, and recurring themes, even better. McGuire also fell short in addressing other motivations behind the civil rights movement. While there is no question that sexual violence played a large role in the motivations behind the civil rights movement, other aspects, like job discrimination, voting rights, and physical threats and assault, moved people to action as well. McGuire would have added credibility to her arguments by addressing these other factors in the prologue of At the Dark End of the Street, at least. Finally, McGuire would have benefitting from addressing intrarace sexual violence as a supplemental analysis and contrast to interrace sexual violence. A section on this subject could have been added to chapter six or seven and significantly strengthened it. While not as prevalent as interracial rape, sexual violence among African Americans still existed, and the Black Panther Party even had a procedure for dealing with rape accusations among party members. An analysis of this would have lended to recurring themes and strengthened McGuire’s argument.
In 2011, historian Steven F. Lawson published a book examining the historiography of the civil rights movement entitled Freedom Rights: New Perspectives on the Civil Rights Movement. In the chapter “Long Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968,” Lawson considered the recent trend in civil rights historiography that expanded the civil rights movement beyond the typical barriers of 1955 (Brown v. Board, Montgomery bus boycott) and 1968 (the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.), and came to the conclusion that “we are best served historically and politically by returning to a focus on the classic civil rights movement as the bref durée” (Lawson, 28). McGuire’s analysis in At the Dark End of the Street was in contrast to this opinion. McGuire stated repeatedly that the civil rights movement was a culmination of a “decades-long struggle to protect black women… from sexualized violence and rape” (xvii). Lawson’s work noted other trends that McGuire’s work fit into: recent works on the civil rights movement have been exposing the prominence of women in the actions of civil rights groups and events, as well as decentering Martin Luther King, Jr. as the figurehead of the movement. Lawson and McGuire disagreed slightly on the “origins of the classic civil rights movement” (Lawson, 20). Lawson acknowledged that local communities had a large hand in organizing and supporting the movement, but did not place the same amount of emphasis and importance on communities that McGuire did. Communities were essential to McGuire’s argument; without local communities becoming outraged at sexual violence, victims would not have received the support they needed to achieve justice. Despite the questionable references to the Annales school of history, “Long Origins of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968” was helpful in understanding recent civil rights historiography and how At the Dark End of the Street fit into it.
Danielle McGuire’s At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance–a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power is a brilliant book that proposes a new and convincing way of understanding an already well-known era of American history. McGuire’s narrative style of writing engages and hooks the reader, making the book accessible and feasible for a wide audience (though perhaps not a young one). At the Dark End of the Street is well-researched, compelling, and insightful, and is sure to become a standard in civil rights movement historiography.