HIS 8078 – The Long Civil Rights Movement
McRae, Elizabeth Gillespie. Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 352.
Images of white women screaming in the face of young African American students attempting to integrate public schools are seared into the American psyche. White backlash against judicial decisions in the South is well known during the traditional Civil Rights Movement, defined as the decade following the Brown decision. In Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy, Elizabeth Gillespie McRae attempts to expand our historical concept of white resistance to the Black freedom struggle. McRae shows us that white women were active in both the creation and maintenance of not only a Jim Crow South, but a Jim Crow nation from the 1920s through the 1970s. Mothers of Massive Resistance attempts to remedy the fact that white women have been overlooked in scholarly analysis of segregation and white supremacy, both because they are women and because their work focused mainly on a local, grassroots level. Although largely ignored in the historical narrative, their commitment to the everyday work needed to sustain Jim Crow segregation was crucially important to white privilege and racial inequality which continues to this day.
Weaving the stories of notable women throughout the narrative lends credence to McRae’s argument that massive white resistance did not simply react to the Brown decision, nor did it dissipate with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. Part I of her book focuses on the work done by Southern white women that formalized the racial divide and institutionalized the color-line under Jim Crow laws and culture. McRae posits that women were ideally situated to this work, as they were employed in positions as midwives, teachers, registrars, and social workers, enabling them to record an individual’s race from birth and challenge racial identities based on the pseudo-science of eugenics. Women became the defenders of American History by censoring textbooks and storytelling to ensure that the history of the nation and the South was positive, uplifting, heroic, and above all, White. White women formed the first foundational cracks in the Solid South’s unwavering support for the Democratic Party when Eleanor Roosevelt offended their racial sensibilities and cultural norms by dining and socializing with African Americans. Disappointed in the lackluster Jim Crow leadership of male Democratic leaders, white women spoke out against blind support for the party. With the dawn of the Cold War, white segregationist women discovered a broader audience with conservative networks across the country simply by hiding their overt racism behind the rhetoric of states’ rights, smaller government, anti-internationalism, fiscal responsibility, property rights, and family values. Mothers of Massive Resistance concludes by traveling to the North, with the story of the Boston anti-bussing crusade. McRae shows that the politics, tactics, and language of Northern white women in the 1970s was plainly similar to earlier white segregationist women in the South.
McRae reveals the ways that segregationists changed their language and actions over time and space in order to appeal to a broader audience. The creation of the United Nations, once viewed as a positive step in bringing peace to the work and protecting American children, became a rival enemy to a segregated society. Anti-colonialism and recommendations for multi-cultural education directly threatened white supremacy in America. White women feared that the eyes of the world would not only judge their way of life but would directly intervene to remove white privilege and undo the racial values imparted onto their children. Segregationists’ concerns aligned well with conservatives’ rising anti-communist sentiment, who viewed the United Nations as a one-world, subversive government. The linkage of civil rights with Communism allowed white segregationist women to enjoin any attempts at racial equality with subversive influence and outsider agitation, ignoring the Black freedom struggle as a clear indication that their long-held fairytale of Black satisfaction with Jim Crow was widely false.
Although Mothers of Massive Resistance claims to broaden the scope of white women’s segregationist work beyond class and geographic lines, much of the book remains focused on Southern middle-class women. McRae alludes to the communication and connections made between Western and Northern conservative women with Southern segregationist women but fails to fully capture their voice until we reach the conclusion and the stories of Boston’s anti-bussing crusade. There is almost a complete absence of working-class voices within most of the narrative, particularly from the rural, economically challenged regions of the South. The book would also have benefited greatly from an early description and definition of white womanhood and white motherhood, which we do not reach until pages 112 and 115. The book is, however, thoroughly researched. A wide variety of sources from personal manuscript collections, periodicals and newspapers, organization newsletters, and court cases provide the book with a rich variety of voices and reference material.
Mothers of Massive Resistance uncovers the racial work of white women as mothers, teachers, activists, and above all, the “gardeners of segregation.” Although these roles have been largely invisible, they are critical to create a complete and comprehensive picture of race and society in America. This gendered nature of massive resistance developed and changed throughout the twentieth century to stay relevant in shifting cultural contexts. White segregationist women were an integral part of the rise of the New Right, focusing their efforts on conservatism, parental control over schools, state over federal rule, and a broader America First agenda. Espousing motherhood and female virtues provided the rationale for claiming public schools, social interaction, and cultural heritage as women’s area of expertise. By retaining authority over textbooks and teacher training that relayed historical knowledge to future generations and organizing civic groups to unite conservative women, white segregationists maintained everyday influence over customary segregation, even as de jure segregation was outlawed. Mothers of Massive Resistance provides analysis of this previously forgotten, but ultimately critical part of the history of white supremacy. This book not only contributes to a deeper understanding of the past, but also a greater understanding of the political and social divisions within white female Americans today.
Kelly Murmello 