Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege

While playing the southern lady for the white political establishment, thousands of mostly middle-class, middle-aged, married white women become grassroots activists in America's civil rights movement, sometimes at the cost of friendships, status, economic security, and family support. The original essays in this collection tell who these women were, why they became committed to racial justice and equal opportunity, and how they organized to change southern society. The women worked within a range of national and local Institutions, both segregated and biracial. Their stories, largely unknown, span most of the 20th century from the New Deal to the early 1970s and took place across the South from Louisville to New Orleans. In the ongoing struggle for human dignity and voice in American life, this book adds a new and necessary dimension to our understanding of both biracial activism and white anti-racism.