"The lives of black women in American politics are remarkably absent from the shelves of bookstores and libraries. For Colored Girls Who Have Consider Politics is a sweeping view of American history from the vantage points of four women who have lived and worked behind the scenes in politics for over thirty years--Donna Brazile, Yolanda Caraway, Leah Daughtry, and Minyon Moore--a group of women who call themselves The Colored Girls. Like many people...

"In 1964, Nina Simone sat at a piano in New York's Carnegie Hall to play what she called a "show tune." Then she began to sing: "Alabama's got me so upset/Tennessee made me lose my rest/And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam!" Simone, and her song, became icons of the civil rights movement. But her confrontational style was not the only path taken by black women entertainers. In How It Feels to Be Free, Ruth Feldstein examines celebrated black...

This work is a reassessment of black beauty salons as vital sites for social change. Looking through the lens of black business history, it shows how black beauticians in the Jim Crow era parlayed their economic independence and access to a public community space into platforms for activism. The author argues that the beauty industry played a crucial role in the creation of the modern black female identity and that the seemingly frivolous space of...

"A feminist, an outspoken activist, a woman without a college education, Midge Costanza was one of the unlikeliest of White House insiders. Yet in 1977 she became the first female Assistant to the President for Public Liaison under Jimmy Carter, emerging as a prominent focal point of the American culture wars. Tasked with bringing the views of special interest groups to the president, Costanza championed progressive causes even as Americans grew increasingly...