Louis Edgar Esparza

I was tasked with finding a book on Women’s Movement strategy for our Social Movements Reading Group. My usual trusty sources, Jeff and Jim, helped me generate the following list, after the jump. Let me know your preference by Sunday. Remember to save the date, May 8th, around 6 pm, for our meeting.

Maddison & Scalmer. 2005. Activist Wisdom: Practical Knowledge and Creative Tension in Social Movements. UNSW Press.

Peace marches, protest demonstrations and campaigns for or against every cause imaginable have long been part of the Australian social and political landscape. This lively book blends the voices and experiences of insiders involved in particular causes with a bigger picture that analyses successes and failures, communication of ideas and social and political impacts. It features fascinating interviews with some of Australia’s best-known activists from the environmental, women’s, peace, student, refugee and Aboriginal movements. With passion and insight, these people articulate their unique form of practical knowledge. Activist Wisdom connects this knowledge to key social movement histories and theories, providing an insight into the world of activism and the tensions that are an inevitable part of most social movements.

Orleck, Annelise. 2006. Storming Caesar’s Palace: How Black Mothers Fought Their Own War on Poverty. Beacon.

In Storming Caesars Palace, historian Annelise Orleck tells the compelling story of how a group of welfare mothers built one of this country’s most successful antipoverty programs. Declaring “We can do it and do it better,” these women proved that poor mothers are the real experts on poverty. In 1972 they founded Operation Life, which was responsible for many firsts for the poor in Las Vegas—the first library, medical center, daycare center, job training, and senior citizen housing. By the late 1970s, Operation Life was bringing millions of dollars into the community. These women became influential in Washington, DC—respected and listened to by political heavyweights such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Ted Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter. Though they lost their funding with the country’s move toward conservatism in the 1980s, their struggles and phenomenal triumphs still stand as a critical lesson about what can be achieved when those on welfare chart their own course.

Ray, Raka. 1999. Fields of Protest: Women’s Movements in India. Minnesota.

Fields of Protest explores the political and cultural circumstances under which groups of women organize to fight for their rights and self-worth. Starting with Bombay and Calcutta, Raka Ray discusses the creation of “political fields”—structured, unequal, and socially constructed political environments within which organizations exist, flourish, or fail. In other words, women’s organizations are not autonomous or free agents; rather, they inherit a “field” and its accompanying social relations, and when they act, they act in response to it and within it. Drawing on the literature of both social movements and feminism, Ray analyzes the striking differences between the movements in these two cities.

Robnett, Belinda. 2000. How Long? How Long?: African-American Women in the Struggle for Civil Rights. Oxford.

Bound to be controversial, Robnett’s How Long? How Long? challenges received perspectives on the role of gender in the Civil Rights Movement. In doing so she has made a major contribution to our understanding of the internal dynamics of social movements. It is both impassioned and impressive.”–Mayer Zald, Department of Sociology, University of Michigan
“Belinda Robnett has made a unique contribution to our understanding of the Civil Rights movement and social movements generally. How Long? How Long? clearly demonstrates that gender mattered in the Civil Rights movement and that gender must be taken into account if we are to formulate accurate and comprehensive theories of collective action. This work is based on extensive research which gives voice to the masses of women who played pivotal roles in the Civil Rights movement. Finally a work has appeared that captures the monumental contributions women made to the Civil Rights movement. After reading Belinda Robnett’s book, one comes to understand clearly that if it were not for the actions of Black women, there would not have been a Civil Rights movement. -Aldon D. Morris, Northwestern University

Roth, Benita. 2003. Separate Roads to Feminism: Black, Chicana, and White Feminist Movements in America’s Second Wave.

This book is about the development of white women’s liberation, Black feminism and Chicana feminism in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the era known as the “second wave” of U.S. feminist protest. The author explores the ways that feminist movements emerged from the Civil Rights/ Black Liberation movement, the Chicano movement, and the white left, and the processes that went into political decisions made by feminists to organize autonomously, and in their own racial/ethnic organizations. The book traces the effects that inequality had on the possibilities for feminist unity; the way that loyalties to the “men left behind” impacted feminist organizing, particularly by Black and Chicana feminists; and explores how ideas common throughout the left at the time shaped feminist organizing.