Praised by THE BRAND NEW York Occasions; O, The Oprah Newspaper; Bitch Publication; Slate; Publishers Regular; and more, this is “a bracing corrective to a nationwide mythology” (New York Times) throughout the civil rights movement.

The civil rights movement is becoming national legend, lauded by presidents from Reagan to Obama to Trump, mainly because proof of the power of American democracy. This fable, featuring dreamy heroes and accidental heroines, has shuttered the motion firmly in the past, whitewashed the forces that in regards to a More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights Background stood in its way, and reduced its scope. And it is used perniciously in our very own moments to chastise present-day actions and obscure contemporary injustice. In A More Gorgeous and Terrible Background award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis dissects this nationwide myth-making, teasing apart the accepted stories to show them in a strikingly different light.

We see Rosa Parks not only like a bus woman but a lifelong felony justice activist and radical; Martin Luther Ruler, Jr. as not merely challenging Southern sheriffs but North liberals, as well; and Coretta Scott Ruler not only being a “helpmate” but a lifelong economic justice and tranquility activist who forced her husband’s activism in these directions.

Shifting from “the histories we obtain” to “the histories we are in need of,” Theoharis issues nine key areas of the fable to expose the diversity of people, especially women and young people, who led the movement; the work and disruption it had taken; the role from the press and “polite racism” in maintaining injustice; as well as the immense obstacles and repression activists faced. Theoharis makes us reckon with the fact that definately not being acceptable, unaggressive or unified, the civil privileges motion was unpopular, disruptive, and courageously persevering. Activists embraced an expansive eyesight of justice-which most Americans compared and that your authorities feared.

By showing us the organic reality from the movement, the power of its organizing, and the wonder and scope of the vision, Theoharis proves that there is nothing natural or inevitable about the improvement that occurred. A FAR MORE Gorgeous and Terrible Background changes our historical body, uncovering the richness of our civil privileges legacy, the unpleasant mirror it holds to the country, and the key work that remains to be done.

Winner from the 2018 Brooklyn Open public Library Literary Reward in Nonfiction