At The Dark End Of The Street Analysis

In the Thick of It- Grassroots Crusades in the Civil Rights Era

The Civil Rights Movement was a crucial chapter in the lives of African Americans

in that it saw an outbreak advocating racial equality. This is what the superficial history

that is dictated in schools has taught. This line of thinking is over-generalized and indolent. The

Civil Rights Movement was just not a three-day event were the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

lead the movement and Rosa Parks declined to give up her seat on an Alabama bus. While

these events did happen and they did perpetuate advancement for black people, this

movement was not just about the few figureheads that were appointed to lead the movement

and effect change. It was the numerous groups and individuals behind the scenes that
These groups will be explored

through the lens of each author with a set of specific historiographical questions as a guide. This

essay will purposefully resist the narrative of Martin Luther King as the leader of the movement

and will mention him and others like him as little as possible.

Danielle McGuire, in her study, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women,

Rape and Resistance—A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise

of Black Power uniquely presents a perspective that is unlike the majority of Civil Rights

scholarship. She argues that “Through ministers like Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy

filled public leadership positions, black women were “the power behind the

throne.”ELABORATE ON THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE. Unlike

the popular view that women stood behind the “great men” of this movement in solidarity,

McGuire suggests that they in fact were at the forefront. She explains, “By

deploying their voices as weapons in the wars against white supremacy, whether in the church,

the courtroom, or in congressional hearings, African American women loudly resisted