Melissa Ford, "A Brick and a Bible: Black Women's Radical Activism in the Midwest During the Great Depression" (Southern Illinois UP, 2022)
In this first study of Black radicalism in midwestern cities before the civil rights movement, Melissa Ford connects the activism of Black women who championed justice during the Great Depression to those involved in the Ferguson Uprising and the Black Lives Matter movement.\xa0A Brick and a Bible: Black Women's Radical Activism in the Midwest During the Great Depression\xa0(Southern Illinois UP, 2022) examines how African American working-class women, many of whom had just migrated to \u201cthe promised land\u201d only to find hunger, cold, and unemployment, forged a region of revolutionary potential.\nA Brick and a Bible\xa0theorizes a tradition of Midwestern Black radicalism, a praxis-based ideology informed by but divergent from American Communism. Midwestern Black radicalism that contests that interlocking systems of oppression directly relates the distinct racial, political, geographic, economic, and gendered characteristics that make up the American heartland. This volume illustrates how, at the risk of their careers, their reputations, and even their lives, African American working-class women in the Midwest used their position to shape a unique form of social activism.\nCase studies of Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, and Cleveland\u2014hotbeds of radical activism\u2014follow African American women across the Midwest as they participated in the Ford Hunger March, organized the Funsten Nut Pickers\u2019 strike, led the Sopkin Dressmakers\u2019 strike, and supported the Unemployed Councils and the Scottsboro Boys\u2019 defense. Ford profoundly reimagines how we remember and interpret these \u201cordinary\u201d women doing extraordinary things across the heartland. Once overlooked, their activism shaped a radical tradition in midwestern cities that continues to be seen in cities like Ferguson and Minneapolis today.\nOmari Averette-Phillips is a doctoral student in the department of history at UC Davis. He can be reached at\xa0okaverettephillips@ucdavis.edu.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies