Radicalism at the Crossroads: African American Women Activists in the Cold War

by Dayo F. Gore

With the exception of a few iconic moments such as Rosa Parks's 1955 refusal to move to the back of a Montgomery bus, we hear little about what black women activists did prior to 1960. Perhaps this gap is due to the severe repression that radicals of any color in America faced as early as the 1930s, and into the Red Scare of the 1950s. To be radical, "and" black "and" a woman was to be forced to the margins and consequently, these women's stories have been deeply buried and all but forgotten by the general public and historians alike.

In this exciting work of historical recovery, Dayo F. Gore unearths and examines a dynamic, extended community of black radical women during the early Cold War, including established Communist Party activists such as Claudia Jones, artists and writers such as Beulah Richardson, and lesser-known organizers such as Vicki Garvin and Thelma Dale. These women were part of a black left that laid much of the groundwork for both the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and later strains of black radicalism. Radicalism at the Crossroads offers a sustained and in-depth analysis of the political thought and activism of black women radicals during the Cold War period and adds a new dimension to our understanding of this tumultuous and violent time in United States history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Feminism, African American, United States, Race, School

242 pages, Hardcover

First published February 2, 2011

About the author

Dayo Gore (Dayo F. Gore) is an African-American feminist scholar, former fellow of Harvard's Warren Center for North American History, formerly employed as Assistant Professor of History and of Women's Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Gore is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, San Diego. Gore is one of a new generation of young scholars active in preserving and exploring the infrequently chronicled history of 20th-century black women's radicalism, in the US and beyond. Along with Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard, Gore edited a collection of essays Want to Start A Revolution? Radical Women In The Black Freedom Struggle (NYU Press, 2009), to which she contributed the chapter "From Communist Politics to Black Power: The Visionary Politics and Transnational Solidarities of Victoria Ama Garvin".

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[zaynab]

In an age where Black feminism is rapidly being divorced from its socialist roots, this is a necessary history of how Black women activists organized and wrote during the Cold War. They complicated the politics of white women's feminist movements, the racial gender politics of the communist party, and in defense of Black women imprisoned for resisting rape as a tool of white supremacist violence. I think anyone who calls themselves a Black feminist but doesn't embrace a left politic needs to ask themselves how they can contradict their own lineage by framing Black feminism as a liberal enterprise.

This was also a necessary reminder for me, as someone who grew up in a Black feminist household as kitchen table praxis, not necessarily with the sort of historical knowledge detailed in this book.

Suffice to say I thoroughly enjoyed this book and its a must read.

[Paul]

Very good intellectual and political history.

[Hannah]

Fascinating but more historical and less theoretical/political than I was expecting.

[Melissa Ooten]

I read this one in order to review it for the Women & Social Movements website (which I love and use as much as I can with my students). It's a very argued book, and the concept of a "collective political biography" of 8-10 radical black leftist women operating primarily in NYC through the 1930s-1970s is an interesting one. Like so many academic books, though, it's so specific that I can't ever imagine using it with students. And I know that they would classify it as just another dry history text. But it certainly provides an important contribution to how we think about black radical women activists in the mid-twentieth century.

[Christina Simmons]

Like other reviewers I think it is valuable for telling us about black women radicals in the 1940s and 1950s. Even if they were a small group, their thinking was important and provided groundwork for later feminist and civil rights work in the 1960s. I would have liked to see a little treatment of how these women moved from a Christian religious upbringing (which at least some of them had) to a Marxist ideology.

[Mills College Library]

322.42082 G6662 2011

[Kelli Peters]

Gore provides deep analysis of female political activists during the Cold War. This work focuses on why and how these women became radicalized (adopted a leftist political stance) and what actions they took as a result of this radicalization. This book analyzes the political impacts these women made during the Cold War years in the fields of politics and community organizing.