Just Another Southern Town
Mary Church Terrell and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Nation's Capital
New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2016]
Format: Book
Description: 358 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
In January of 1950, Mary Church Terrell, an 86-year-old charter member of the NAACP, headed into Thompson's Restaurant, just a few blocks from the White House, and requested to be served. She and her companions were informed by the manager that they could not eat in his establishment, because they were "colored." Terrell, a former suffragette and one of the country's first college-educated African American women, took the matter to court. Three years later, the Supreme Court vindicated her outrage: United States v. Thompson was decided in June 1953, invalidating the segregation of restaurants and cafes in the nation's capital. In Just Another Southern Town, Joan Quigley recounts an untold chapter of the civil rights movement: an epic battle to topple segregation in Washington, the symbolic home of American democracy. At the book's heart is the formidable Mary Terrell and the test case she mounts seeking to enforce Reconstruction-era laws prohibiting segregation in D.C. restaurants. Through the prism of Terrell's story, Quigley reassesses Washington's relationship to civil rights history, bringing to life a pivotal fight for equality that erupted five years before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a Montgomery bus and a decade before the student sit-in movement rocked segregated lunch counters across the South. At a time when most civil rights scholarship begins with Brown v. Board of Education, Just Another Southern Town unearths the story of the nation's capital as an early flashpoint on race. A rich portrait of American politics and society in the mid-20th century, it interweaves Terrell's narrative with the courtroom drama of the case and the varied personalities of the justices who ultimately voted unanimously to prohibit segregated restaurants. Resonating with gestures of courage and indignation that radiate from the capital's streets and sidewalks to its marble-clad seats of power, this work restores Mary Church Terrell and the case that launched a crusade to their rightful place in the pantheon of civil rights history.
Contents:
On to the battlefield -- The greatest woman that we have -- They come standing erect -- An example for all the world -- The radicalization of Mary Church Terrell -- Segregation will go -- This thing can be licked -- A bigger step is in order -- Eat anywhere -- Epilogue: Until full and final victory.
Subjects:
Terrell, Mary Church, 1863-1954.
African American women civil rights workers -- Biography.
Civil rights workers -- United States -- Biography.
African Americans -- Biography.
African Americans -- Civil rights -- History.
African Americans -- Segregation -- Washington (D.C.) -- History -- 20th century.
Washington (D.C.) -- Race relations.
Washington (D.C.) -- Biography.
Terrell, Mary Church, 1863-1954.
African American women civil rights workers -- Biography.
Civil rights workers -- United States -- Biography.
African Americans -- Biography.
African Americans -- Civil rights -- History.
African Americans -- Segregation -- Washington (D.C.) -- History -- 20th century.
Washington (D.C.) -- Race relations.
Washington (D.C.) -- Biography.
ISBN:
9780199371518
Availability | |||
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Call Number | Location | Shelf Location | Status |
BIOGRAPHY Terrell, Mary | Sandhills Indoors | Biography | In |
Includes bibliographical references and index.