Radicalism at the Crossroads: African American Women Activists in the Cold War

By: Dayo F. Gore

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Synopsis: With the exception of a few iconic moments such as Rosa Parks’s 1955 refusal to move to the back of a Montgomery bus, we hear little about what black women activists did prior to 1960. Perhaps this gap is due to the severe repression that radicals of any color in America faced as early as the 1930s, and into the Red Scare of the 1950s. To be radical, and black and a woman was to be forced to the margins and consequently, these women’s stories have been deeply buried and all but forgotten by the general public and historians alike. In this exciting work of historical recovery, Dayo F. Gore unearthsand examines a dynamic, extended network of blackradical women during the early Cold War, including establishedCommunist Party activists such as Claudia Jones,artists and writers such as Beulah Richardson, and lesser knownorganizers such as Vicki Garvin and Thelma Dale.These women were part of a black left that laid much ofthe groundwork for both the Civil Rights Movement of the1960s and later strains of black radicalism. Radicalism atthe Crossroads offers a sustained and in-depth analysis ofthe political thought and activism of black women radicalsduring the Cold War period and adds a new dimension toour understanding of this tumultuous time in United Stateshistory.