Crossing the Line: Women's Interracial Activism in South Carolina during and after World War II | 
pickI used pens, bought highlighters in Cologne, and had scraps of paper everywhere as I read this fascinating and rather depressing book. In short: There wasn‘t a lot of interracial activism, & many white women withdrew from the work they had been doing after Brown v. Topeka Board of Ed in 1954. 👀
I learned a lot about Septima Clark, Modjeska Simkins, & Alice Norwood Spearman, & I‘ll be tracking down more info. 4⭐️ to this dissertation turned book.
“Southern white church women continued this attention to racial issues when delegates from twelve states attended a two-day meeting in Atlanta in 1949. ... At this meeting they vowed to go to registration & voting centers with their cooks and maids in order to safeguard their right to the franchise. They pledged to make voting ‘legally and actually safe for all‘ & affirmed their belief that ‘all men, white & Negro, are entitled to equal justice.‘”
(I‘m reading on the rather delayed train from Heidelberg to Cologne, FYI.) “Im South Carolina, merely using the term ‘interracial‘ did not mean black and white college students would work together to bring about change. In fact, the majority of southern white students in the 1940s adamantly supported segregation.” Sooooo Christian (which later paragraphs confirm WAS INDEED what white administrators believed). 👀😧😳 #history
Soooo African American teachers wanted to be paid equal wages in South Carolina in 1944 & Charleston‘s “conservative newspaper, the *News and Courier*, reflecting the views of many local whites, suggested that all public education be discontinued in South Carolina except for elementary ‘reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic‘ in order to forestall granting equal salaries to Black teachers.”
I mean ... what the ... what????
“Despite the emphasis on domesticity after [WWII], recent scholarship has shown that many black and white women did everything but acquiesce to such demands.” I am HERE for the everything but folks! #history
