A01=Pamela E. Brooks
activism in U.S. South and South Africa
African American women leadership
African diaspora activism
African diaspora history
African National Congress
anti-apartheid campaigns
apartheid resistance
Author_Pamela E. Brooks
black liberation struggles
black women activists
black women in history
Category=JBSF1
Category=JBSL
Category=JPVC
Category=JPWG
Category=NHH
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
churchwomen in politics
civil rights movement history
civil rights oral histories
class and gender dynamics
clubwomen leadership
colonialism and racial justice
comparative civil rights studies
domestic and factory worker activism
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Federation of South African Women
gender and race activism
gendered activism
global anti-colonial movements
grassroots organizing techniques
grassroots women leaders
intersectional activism
liberation movements 20th century
mid-1950s protest movements
mid-20th century political movements
Montgomery bus boycott
Montgomery Improvement Association
oral histories of activism
ordinary women extraordinary impact
political consciousness development
postcolonial resistance
racial justice campaigns
rural and urban activism
social equality advocacy
South African women leadership
South African women protest
transatlantic civil rights parallels
transnational civil rights movements
women in civil rights history
women's history comparative study
Women's Political Council history
women's political organizations
women-led political change
Product details
- ISBN 9781558496781
- Weight: 567g
- Dimensions: 152 x 228mm
- Publication Date: 19 Nov 2008
- Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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This book presents a comparative history of the liberation struggles of black women in two countries. In the mid-1950s, as many developing nations sought independence from colonial rule, black women in the American South and in South Africa launched parallel campaigns to end racial injustice within their respective communities. Just as the dignified obstinacy of Mrs. Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, the 20,000 South African women who marched in Pretoria a year later to protest the pass laws signaled a new wave of resistance to the system of apartheid. In both places women who had previously been consigned to subordinate roles brought fresh leadership to the struggle for political freedom and social equality. In this book, Pamela E. Brooks tells their story, documenting the extraordinary achievements of otherwise ordinary women.In comparing the experiences of black women activists in two different parts of the African diaspora, Brooks draws heavily on oral histories that provide clear, and often painful, insight into their backgrounds, their motives, their hopes, and their fears. We learn how black women from all walks of life - domestic and factory workers, householders, teachers, union organizers, churchwomen, clubwomen, rural and urban dwellers alike - had to overcome their class differences and work through the often difficult gender relations within their families and communities. Yet eventually they came together to forge their own political organizations, such as the Women's Political Council and the Federation of South African Women, or joined organizations of women and men, such as the Montgomery Improvement Association and the African National Congress, to advance the common agenda of black liberation.By tracing the dual rise of political consciousness and activism among the black women of the U.S. South and South Africa, Brooks not only illuminates patterns that have long been overlooked but places that shared history within the context of a larger global struggle to bring an end to the vestiges of European colonialism.
PAMELA E. BROOKS is associate professor of African American studies at Oberlin College.
