A review by sunflowerjess
A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History by Jeanne Theoharis

challenging informative tense slow-paced

4.0

Probably everything you've learned about the Civil Rights Movement, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr is whitewashed and simplified. MLK Jr was so much more than his "I Have a Dream" speech and Rosa Parks so much more than one seat on a bus. This book does an incredible job of putting these well-known moments of history into context and revealing the decades-long, community-wide struggles around these pivotal moments. The book also connects the Civil Rights Movement with today's BLM protests and shows how the same criticisms and oppositions are being raised today as they were in history. King, Parks, and other leaders were not quiet, docile, or polite, and they didn't accomplish what they did alone. This is priceless reading for anyone who wants to support social justice today.