The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements: Empowering Women and Organizing for Revolutionary Change

The decade of the 1950s is known for the dramatic rise of reactionary politics, especially the virulent anti-communism of the McCarthy era. Amidst and against this period of great reaction emerged the civil rights struggle, initially spearheaded in the southern United States. Witnessing the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the lynching of Emmett Till and the resistance of Rosa Parks, the Black community was enlivened, enraged and galvanized into collective action. The boycott that followed Parks’ courageous stand began as a protest against police mistreatment, but soon transformed into an all-out denunciation of segregation.