A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History

A fable is a fictional story intended to communicate a moral. Theoharis routinely uses the term to describe the enduring American narrative of the civil rights movement. In this context, the term “fable” highlights the amount of fiction that informs the popular narrative, transforming historical fact into a story carefully crafted to exculpate white society from its longstanding and institutionalized anti-Black racism.

Theoharis uses the term “polite racism” to distinguish between overt racist discrimination and subtler practices that covertly uphold systems of racial inequality. Hitting or lynching a Black man is overt, immediately visible racist violence. Voicing support for Southern desegregation while glossing over local segregation is “polite racism,” as it is nonconfrontational and maintains a façade of liberalism. Theorharis’s book discusses such instances.

Theoharis also discusses “tools” associated with polite racism. One is “colorblind” language and ideology, which intentionally removes race from conversations as if it is a non-entity in society and culture. Another tool of polite racism was policy. Policy that adheres to “colorblind” ideology will not intervene in matters of racial inequality because all people are supposed to be equal in a democratic society, and in such a society, race-based policy would entail unwarranted advantages for certain demographics. The underlying and false assumption is that people are already on an equal playing field rather than systematically discriminated against. Polite racism actively upholds white supremacist systems while typically feigning egalitarian sentiments.

Segregation is the formal and intentional separation of white community members from community members of color in American history. Desegregation is the dismantling of that separation and opening up access to resources for all people regardless of race. Typically, historical accounts of segregation focus on white spaces and resources, as white people had privileged access to better schools, public services, and public spaces. Until the 1950s, sequestering people based on race was legal. The onset of mid-century civil rights activism largely targeted segregation, although it was one of many issues. The author is careful to explain, particularly in Chapter 5, that the civil rights movement was about much more than desegregation and that even as a major concern, the effort represented not a mere desire to sit next to white people but a demand to radically restructure society.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is a civil rights organization formed in 1957. Martin Luther King Jr. was the organization’s first president, and the group is forever associated with him. The SCLC promoted nonviolence and civil disobedience as it worked to train leaders, register voters, and provide support for other civil rights activists.

The SCLC is one of the most influential groups remembered for its activity in the South during the civil rights movement. Even decades later, most Americans imagine a positive reputation for the organization, even recalling it as a sight of “proper” activism. During the movement, however, most Americans regarded Martin Luther King Jr. and his associates as dangerous troublemakers.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was a student activist group formed in 1960 to promote civil rights through nonviolent protest. It remained a crucial source of student activism throughout the civil rights movement and carried out a series of sit-ins in public segregated spaces to force desegregation. One of the key founders was Ella Baker, a member of the NAACP and Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She encouraged students to form their own organization instead of operating as wings of these other adult organizations.

SNCC carried out boycotts, peaceful demonstrations, and the famous Freedom Rides in 1961 during which multiracial groups of activists rode buses across the South and faced violent backlash from police and white citizens. The group also worked to register and protect Black voters during “Freedom Summer” in 1964.

Theoharis does not detail all of these activities, but she stresses how important youth activists and organizations were to the civil rights movement as a whole. SNCC was a prominent youth group that exercised considerable influence and highlighted the organizational and confrontational power of both youths and women, for several women had been central to SNCC’s establishment and ongoing activist efforts.