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The definitive political biography of Rosa Parks examines her six decades of activism, challenging perceptions of her as an accidental actor in the civil rights movement. Presenting a corrective to the popular notion of Rosa Parks as the quiet seamstress who, with a single act, birthed the modern civil rights movement, Theoharis provides a revealing window into Parks’s politics and years of activism. She shows readers how this civil rights movement radical sought—for more than a half a century—to expose and eradicate the American racial-caste system in jobs, schools, public services, and criminal justice.
Mixing aspects of social, political, and institutional history, authors Athan and Jeanne Theoharis survey the quest for equal rights and social justice in the last half-century. This text shows how individuals have sought to affect civil rights and liberties at the grassroots level, and how government has reacted to these individuals' attempts to affect change. In particular, the authors discuss the problematic status of civil liberties, civil rights, and civil dissent during the Cold War era--providing a vital, critical insight into post-1945 politics. This volume is part of the AMERICA SINCE 1945 series--a collection of brief texts that seek to define the ways in which the United States has changed in the last 50 years. |