Separate Races to Separate Classes

Christina Greene. Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2005. xviii + 384 pp. $59.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8078-2938-7. Reviewed by Mary G. Rolinson Published on H-SAWH (September, 2006) In Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black fresh and provocative lines of inquiry for histori‐ Freedom Movement in Durham, North Carolina, ans of the modern civil rights movement and its Christina Greene presents an assiduously re‐ aftermath by exploring personal interactions searched, complex study of politically and organi‐ across race, class, and gender lines that often defy zationally active segments of Durham, North Car‐ previous oversimplifications. olina. Greene shows us how black women and The frst three chapters of Our Separate Ways their diverse allies led in the African American provide background that makes the scope of this struggle to achieve equal education, economic op‐ community study more satisfying. Although portunity, and a political voice in their neighbor‐ Greene admits that World War II provided the hoods and communities. This book takes ideas widest window of opportunity for women, com‐ about black women and their roles as organizers munity organizing was well under way during the from recent sociological and theoretical discus‐ 1930s and 1940s. Although fraught with difficulty, sions and brings them to life in Durham, a ftting these prewar years allowed black women to iden‐ template for the urbanizing New South (see, for tify the challenges they would face for decades to example, Belinda Robnett, How Long, How Long? come. Women's modest successes during this ear‐ African American Women and the Struggle for ly phase planted seeds that made subsequent ac‐ Civil Rights, 1997). tivism possible. Greene's extensive use of oral interviews and Through extensive mining of Durham's week‐ untapped archival sources gives the activist wom‐ ly black newspaper, the Carolina Times, and the en of Durham names, tells us their words and ac‐ records of the National Association for the Ad‐ tions, and describes what events inspired them, vancement of Colored People (NAACP) branches empowered them, gave them hope, disappointed in North Carolina, Greene demonstrates the day- them, and sometimes required them to act in to-day role women played in pushing an improve‐ seemingly contradictory ways. This book provides ment and organizational agenda prior to the di‐ H-Net Reviews rect-action phase of protest in the 1960s. In this lene Young helped further solidify the foundation earlier period, the ability of many middle-class, of the NAACP by building up the youth councils educated African American women to serve as and promoting loyalty through local black col‐ leaders was overshadowed by traditional black leges and among youth organizations. male leadership and handicapped by the attack In some of the most original and insightful on Popular Front and progressive biracial organi‐ analysis in the book, Greene asks us to consider zations, but Durham's black women consistently the "invisible" networks of women formed during refused to be excluded. Through a few key organi‐ informal discussions at beauty shops, in female- zations, such as the Young Women's Christian As‐ owned and female-operated drink houses, and sociation, the American Association of University among mothers on neighborhood front porches in Women, and the Women's International League Durham. She demonstrates how these social inter‐ for Peace and Freedom, they kept their agendas actions enabled more formal and concerted ac‐ alive. tion, such as challenges to continued school segre‐ One particularly interesting aspect of this gation policies after the Brown decision, evictions study is the limited presence of influential local from housing in times when urban renewal pastors and diligent churchwomen who occupy cleared slums but provided no alternative hous‐ such prominence in the freedom movements of ing, and non-recognition of union demands for comparable southern cities. No doubt Greene's fo‐ housekeepers, janitors, and cafeteria workers at cus on women required that she look for women Duke University. leaders outside of the patriarchal structure of the Greene also delineates how a number of black church and in secular and civic organiza‐ Durham's low-income women were new to pover‐ tions. It would be interesting to know if the appar‐ ty because of personal circumstances and the ent lack of clerical leadership created a void that shifting economy of the region, putting this com‐ provided a unique opportunity for Durham's munity study into a wider context. She adds na‐ black women. tional context for local racial tensions by connect‐ Another phase of organizing in Durham came ing such highly publicized events as the race riots with the opportunities provided to women during in Detroit, Newark, Birmingham, Watts, and Or‐ World War II and the assertiveness of black veter‐ angeburg, S.C., to reaction in Durham. Although ans, thousands of whom received training at Greene acknowledges that men like Floyd Camp Butner nearby. During the 1940s, the ane‐ McKissick, Louis Austin, and Howard Fuller mic local NAACP branch was revitalized and reor‐ played a meaningful role in mobilizing blacks in ganized under a more female and youth-influ‐ Durham, she maintains a sharp focus on the evo‐ enced orientation. The Durham black community lution of indigenous female leadership, giving us mobilized noticeably after the fres and unrest a richer, more complicated understanding of the that followed the 1944 murder of Private Booker fluidity of race relations within personal and com‐ T. Spicely and the acquittal of the white bus driver munity situations. who shot him in cold blood. In the 1950s, white At the heart of the book, we fnd low-income backlash after the Supreme Court ruled against black women organizing their neighborhoods. segregation in Brown v. Board of Education and From 1965 through 1968, they became more mili‐ the attempt to associate the NAACP with commu‐ tant in demanding economic reforms, higher nism sorely challenged the black activist women wages, and adequate housing. Operation Break‐ of Durham, but they maintained pressure for in‐ through was Durham's anti-poverty agency, stem‐ clusion and resisted intimidation. Women like Ar‐ ming from a statewide program and partially 2 H-Net Reviews funded by federal grants from President Lyndon Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company. These B. Johnson's War on Poverty. The neighborhood middle-class women, both black and white, kept a councils that grew out of these efforts gave dialogue going in Durham during the volatile Durham's women, frst black and later white, a fo‐ school integration process by creating a desegre‐ rum for expressing their demands and priorities. gation support center and also by holding teas. Often put down or met less than halfway, these Knowing that the most divisive racial issues might women sometimes resorted to unconventional split the women, they avoided taking positions on strategies of dissemblance, including "duplicity, the most controversial ones, such as the boycott. threats, and acting crazy" (p. 112). Greene beauti‐ The book's title becomes clear in the closing chap‐ fully illustrates the agency of low-income women ter when the post-1960s rift in Durham society, (as in the case of Joyce Thorpe, a woman facing and at large, mirrored class divisions instead of eviction who later became a successful litigant for strictly racial ones. fair housing) and shows how state and federal Our Separate Ways is refreshing and impor‐ anti-poverty programs and previous anti-discrimi‐ tant because low-income black women are fnally nation court decisions were direct catalysts for at the center of the story … yet they are not alone. these women's bold actions. Only through an in-depth community study such With the end of the 1960s, conservative pres‐ as this can we see the extraordinarily complex so‐ sure from the federal government led to reduc‐ cial and political lives they led in navigating the tions in War on Poverty funding through the Of‐ freedom struggle. It brought them into conversa‐ fice of Economic Opportunity because it seemed tion and conflict with black men, middle-class to be encouraging "militancy" and "undesirable" black and white women, low-income whites, and empowerment of divisive elements in black com‐ political and civic leaders at the local, state, and munities. In Durham, there was certainly a rising national levels. Greene's study is original and in‐ militancy, but local blacks saw their empower‐ formative because it takes us up to 1970s Durham ment in a more positive light. Black Durham ex‐ to demonstrate how the civil rights struggle failed hibited unity through its 1968-1969 boycott of to resolve class issues, giving us a clearer sense of white-owned businesses. Greene explains the key why the revolution is unfinished. to the boycott's success was the tenacity of the fe‐ male-dominated United Organizations for Com‐ munity Improvement, more so than the leader‐ ship of the male-dominated Black Solidarity Com‐ mittee. But the boycott also revealed problems: at ground level in Durham's African American com‐ munity, there were class, generational, and gen‐ der tensions that emerged during the long months of the boycott. Greene forces us to see that the pri‐ mary weakness of intraracial cooperation was due to the refusal of elites to give power to the poor. Also in the late 1960s, a significant interracial association of women formed as Women in Ac‐ tion, an organization initiated by Elna Spalding, the wife of the wealthy black owner of the North 3 H-Net Reviews If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-sawh Citation: Mary G.

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