In Hands on the Freedom Plow, fifty-two women--northern and
southern, young and old, urban and rural, black, white, and
Latina--share their courageous personal stories of working for the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on the front lines
of the Civil Rights Movement. The testimonies gathered here present
a sweeping personal history of SNCC: early sit-ins, voter
registration campaigns, and freedom rides; the 1963 March on
Washington, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the movements in
Alabama and Maryland; and Black Power and antiwar activism. Since
the women spent time in the Deep South, many also describe risking
their lives through beatings and arrests and witnessing unspeakable
violence. These intense stories depict women, many very young,
dealing with extreme fear and finding the remarkable strength to
survive. The women in SNCC acquired new skills, experienced
personal growth, sustained one another, and even had fun in the
midst of serious struggle. Readers are privy to their analyses of
the Movement, its tactics, strategies, and underlying philosophies.
The contributors revisit central debates of the struggle including
the role of nonviolence and self-defense, the role of white people
in a black-led movement, and the role of women within the Movement
and the society at large. Each story reveals how the struggle for
social change was formed, supported, and maintained by the women
who kept their "hands on the freedom plow." As the editors write in
the introduction, "Though the voices are different, they all tell
the same story--of women bursting out of constraints, leaving
school, leaving their hometowns, meeting new people, talking into
the night, laughing, going to jail, being afraid, teaching in
Freedom Schools, working in the field, dancing at the Elks Hall,
working the WATS line to relay horror story after horror story,
telling the press, telling the story, telling the word. And making
a difference in this world."
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!