A Girl Stands at the Door, Rachel Devlin
A Girl Stands at the Door, Rachel Devlin
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A Girl Stands at the Door
The Generation of Young Women Who Desegregated America's Schools

Author: Rachel Devlin

Narrator: Robin Miles

Unabridged: 12 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 05/15/2018

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

A new history of school desegregation in America, revealing how girls and women led the fight for interracial education

The struggle to desegregate America's schools was a grassroots movement, and young women were its vanguard. In the late 1940s, parents began to file desegregation lawsuits with their daughters, forcing Thurgood Marshall and other civil rights lawyers to take up the issue and bring it to the Supreme Court. After the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, girls far outnumbered boys in volunteering to desegregate formerly all-white schools.

In A Girl Stands at the Door, historian Rachel Devlin tells the remarkable stories of these desegregation pioneers. She also explains why black girls were seen, and saw themselves, as responsible for the difficult work of reaching across the color line in public schools. Highlighting the extraordinary bravery of young black women, this bold revisionist account illuminates today's ongoing struggles for equality.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Naomi on November 08, 2018

Interesting book and I learned a lot but it didn't really hang together so well. That said, she added important perspectives to the desegregation fights and I really enjoyed hearing from and learning about some of the families, girls and young women at the forefront. And one quibble: she doesn't men......more

Goodreads review by Glady on May 06, 2018

I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an impartial review. Reading a book like A Girl Stands at the Door can only be described as humbling. Little girls, pre-adolescents, teens and young adults displayed a courage that far outweighed their years. Covering the time period from the 1930s......more

Goodreads review by Porter on September 04, 2018

I listened to this book via my public library and have to say it is a phenomenal work. The book starts in the 1930s with Lloyd Gaines, a black man who wanted to attend the Missouri Law School. It talks about his fight to gain acceptance to the school, the accompanying attempts to negate the court ru......more

Goodreads review by Trip on June 18, 2018

This is an extraordinary book. I recently finished it, and my first impulse was to return to the beginning, and, having arrived again at the end of the epilogue, my impulse is to return to the beginning yet again. We should all read this book -- ALL of us -- or listen to it, or both at once, as the......more

Quotes

"Revelatory...Devlin reminds us that the task of publicly and constitutionally challenging racial discrimination in education was laid on the bodies of black girls. This is a reality with which America has yet to reckon."—New York Times Book Review

"[A] groundbreaking new work of recovered history...Devlin, a Rutgers University historian, spent ten years tracking down and interviewing dozens of women who endured harassment and abuse to desegregate schools, whether or not their lawsuits prevailed...Devlin's chronicle...promises to reignite public conversation and debate about racial disparities in public education."—Smithsonian

"Fascinating...Devlin is the first historian to demonstrate that, collectively, girls were the vanguard of the struggle against Jim Crow in education"—New York Review of Books

"Meticulous and emotionally resonant...Devlin paints compelling portraits of largely unknown desegregation pioneers...Her interviews with the many 'firsts'...are riveting, inspiring and dispiriting."—Ms.

"In her sweeping analysis...Devlin makes it clear what was at stake for these girls and why we must continue to remember their sacrifices."—Bitch Magazine

"This is essential American history-it's the history of how we got where we are, it's a history of how student activism changed the world by fighting against powerful forces...The book is about knowing the past and knowing your power." —Literary Hub

"[A] groundbreaking new work of recovered history... Devlin, a Rutgers University historian, spent ten years tracking down and interviewing dozens of women who endured harassment and abuse to desegregate schools, whether or not their lawsuits prevailed...Devlin's chronicle...promises to reignite public conversation and debate about racial disparities in public education."—Smithsonian

"The decade of work Devlin put into recovering this underappreciated aspect of civil-rights history is fully on display."—Booklist

"In this accomplished history of the school desegregation fight from the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, Devlin...offers a cogent overview of the legal strategies employed and delves into the stories of the African-American girls (and their families) who defied the ignominious public school systems of the Jim Crow South....Devlin's use of diverse secondary and primary sources, including her own interviews with some of the surviving women, bring fresh perspectives. This informative account of change-making is well worth reading."—Publishers Weekly

"A thoroughly researched, well-written work about civil rights, American history, and the momentum of political change that young people, particularly women, initiate."—Library Journal

Awards

  • Lillian Smith Book Award
  • Darlene Clark Hine
  • Kansas Notable Book
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