At The Dark End of the Street written by Danielle L. McGuire depicts the systematic oppression of black women and the sexual violence they faced throughout the Civil Rights Movement from the 1940’s-1970’s. McGuire’s tell-all book of true stories lived by African American women, discusses the decoding of our societal racism during this time period and the forgotten role that they played throughout this momentous time in history. McGuire’s intention in writing this book was to reveal how Jim Crow laws and overt racism impacted the African American female population. Delving into the topic of sexual violence against black women during the civil rights movement is important because their role was pivotal to creating the world we live in today but often forgotten or overshadowed.
When we think of the Civil Rights Movement and the acts committed against African Americans, the violence discussed is often perpetrated against black males. We forget to visit the untold stories of oppression that women faced during this time period. She combines the three elements of advocacy, resistance and victimization to tell the stories of women who she feels deserve to still have their voices heard. McGuire wrote this book to tell “the real story- that the civil rights movement is also rooted in African American women’s long struggle against sexual violence…who fought for bodily integrity and personal dignity” (McGuire, 2010, p. 6). The book begins by describing one of the most infamous cases of sexual violence against a black woman by white men. Recy Taylor was accused of committing an assault against a white man earlier in the day and was kidnapped by 6 white men who proceeded to take turns raping her, and then dressing her, blindfolding her and dropping her off on the highway where they proceeded to inform her not to take the blindfold off until they had disappeared. This event sparked the creation of the Committee of Equal justice, which is what the Montgomery Improvement Association and the Montgomery Bus Boycott both were rooted in. It is important to acknowledge that Rosa Parks was assigned this case by NAACP president. This is critical information because often times Civil Rights activists would choose to promote stories of men and women who only benefited their political agendas. They were very calculated and subjective to increase the success of the Civil Rights Movement. For example, in class we discussed Claudette Colvin. The true first African American woman to refuse to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. Colvin’s story was not actively shared during the movement because she became pregnant before marriage which some thought would attract negative attention. It was fair to say that Ms. Colvin did not fit the image that a movement as large as this would want to ‘show off.’ McGuire’s book discusses the ambition and courage that black women as a whole had during this time in history. The correlation between Taylor and Parks and their launch of uncovering the realm of sexual assault against black women by white men is a forgotten piece of history that added ammo to the call for social change.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott is seen as a race issue but it actually turned out to be more of a gender issue. McGuire described this event as a “women’s movement for dignity, respect, and bodily integrity” rather than a bold step by militant male ministers” (McGuire, 2010, p.43). McGuire goes on to describe violence that happened not just in private homes but in greater public spaces and how women battled for their rights from church to busses and even in jail. Today, many view Brown v. Board of Education as the milestone for desegregation in the south, but McGuire takes a radical stance on the violence that occurred after this decision as a way to re-instill white, heteronormative dominance in America. She goes on to describe the “Kissing Case” where two young grade school boys were charged with rape for a white girl kissing them on the cheek. These cases unveil just how bad of a state the South was in at the time of the Civil Rights movement and the “growing racial and sexual hysteria” (p. 128).
I think it is important when reading this book to draw on my knowledge from this course to apply sociological perspectives and ideals to better understand the why behind these stories. First, it is important to understand the influence that Jim Crow Laws had on the Civil Rights movement. Jim Crow Laws were created to implement legal segregation in all Southern States in all public places including schools, busses, restaurants, even down to segregated water fountains. Although Jim Crow was implemented to be “separate but equal” this was not so. These laws have institutionalized racial segregation into our society today by creating socioeconomic, educational and political disadvantages for people of color.
One area where this is evident today is in race and neighborhoods. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution there was a large influx of individuals to highly populated city centers to attain employment in factories. This caused towns across the United States to implement racialized policies on housing. Prior to the New Deal, segregation practices were enforced through judiciary enforcement of private contracts which stated what color you had to be to live in certain areas. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 put an end to legal segregation but did not explicitly discuss the role of racial segregation in housing practices and make an end to the now entrenched practices of the American housing landscape that is seemingly divided by race, gender, religion, and socioeconomic status. Due to these long-engrained segregation practices, minorities are often centered in decaying and impoverished areas with low property values. Issues that arise in these racially homogeneous areas are food deserts, discriminatory housing practices, white flight and slumlords. These issues have become not only racialized but classed. These go on to effect things like education and minorities’ relationship with the justice system. Jim Crow Laws, the Civil Rights Movement and influential people like Rosa Parks are the reason our country is the way it is today.
At The Dark End of the Street effectively and compassionately details the stories of the women who crusaded the Civil Rights Movement at the forefront and behind the scenes. It connects the inferiority complex of white men who felt entitled to black women’s bodies and the development of the Civil Rights Movement. At the very core, African Americans were fighting for rights to their own bodies. These women refused to be silent about their rapes and abuse and began a powerful stance for not only the betterment of treatment of African American’s as a race but women as a gender. This stems from the idea of intersectionality which refers to the discrimination a person faces for the overlapping of different minority groups they belong to such as race, religion, group of origin or gender. Although women played a very large role in facilitating the Civil Rights Movement, they took a back seat because men felt as though the sexism would take away from the present racism. It was important at the time to fight for the one overarching minority group, being race. It is also important to acknowledge that at the time, a heteronormative household was what was expected by both white and black men of this time and women were supposed to maintenance the house and take care of the children, not advocate for women’s rights and black lives.
This book visits a very underground and unexposed topic that should be taught in classrooms and politics alike and that is that women have a voice that they desire to be heard with critical things to say. Women like Rosa Parks and Recy Taylor completely rewrote history with their stories and that should be acknowledged. I learned a lot from reading this book filled with case studies of influential women of the Civil Rights Era and am inspired to make a difference. McGuire did a phenomenal job writing an empathic and informative book, delving into the classified world of sexual violence against African American women by white men and how they counteracted these actions through protest, advocacy and more.
