Author of new book on the Civil Rights Movement to speak at GVSU 3/14

Many of us know the story of Rosa Parks refusing to move to the back of the bus. This story is what many have come to believe was what gave birth to the Civil Rights Movement.

Wayne State University Professor Danielle L. McGuire’s new book, At The Dark End of The Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance – New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power, sheds light on the background of the one of the most important social movements of the 20^th century.

McGuire has documented that what led many people to the Civil Rights Movement, particularly Black women, was their collective experience of rape at the hands of White men.

McGuire tells the story of Recy Taylor who was gang raped by White men in 1944. The incident caught the attention of a local NAACP official who sent his best investigator to look into the case and it just happened that this investigator was Rosa Parks. What McGuire came to discover through her research and interviews with Civil Rights veterans was that there was a whole lot of anger and organizing against the White community because of repeated acts of sexual assault against Black women by White men. McGuire says that the bus boycotts were not a surprise, since buses were a place where Black women were often sexually harassed by White men.

Professor Danielle L. McGuire will be speaking about her book this coming Monday, March 14, 4pm in the Loosemore Auditorium on the downtown campus of GVSU. The event is free and open to the public.