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Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC
In Hands on the Freedom Plow, fifty-two women--northern and southern, young and old, urban and rural, black, white, and Latina--share their courageous personal stories of working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement.
The testimonies gathered here present a sweeping personal history of SNCC: early sit-ins, voter registration campaigns, and freedom rides; the 1963 March on Washington, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the movements in Alabama and Maryland; and Black Power and antiwar activism. Since the women spent time in the Deep South, many also describe risking their lives through beatings and arrests and witnessing unspeakable violence. These intense stories depict women, many very young, dealing with extreme fear and finding the remarkable strength to survive.
The women in SNCC acquired new skills, experienced personal growth, sustained one another, and even had fun in the midst of serious struggle. Readers are privy to their analyses of the Movement, its tactics, strategies, and underlying philosophies. The contributors revisit central debates of the struggle including the role of nonviolence and self-defense, the role of white people in a black-led movement, and the role of women within the Movement and the society at large.
Each story reveals how the struggle for social change was formed, supported, and maintained by the women who kept their "hands on the freedom plow." As the editors write in the introduction, "Though the voices are different, they all tell the same story--of women bursting out of constraints, leaving school, leaving their hometowns, meeting new people, talking into the night, laughing, going to jail, being afraid, teaching in Freedom Schools, working in the field, dancing at the Elks Hall, working the WATS line to relay horror story after horror story, telling the press, telling the story, telling the word. And making a difference in this world."
The testimonies gathered here present a sweeping personal history of SNCC: early sit-ins, voter registration campaigns, and freedom rides; the 1963 March on Washington, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the movements in Alabama and Maryland; and Black Power and antiwar activism. Since the women spent time in the Deep South, many also describe risking their lives through beatings and arrests and witnessing unspeakable violence. These intense stories depict women, many very young, dealing with extreme fear and finding the remarkable strength to survive.
The women in SNCC acquired new skills, experienced personal growth, sustained one another, and even had fun in the midst of serious struggle. Readers are privy to their analyses of the Movement, its tactics, strategies, and underlying philosophies. The contributors revisit central debates of the struggle including the role of nonviolence and self-defense, the role of white people in a black-led movement, and the role of women within the Movement and the society at large.
Each story reveals how the struggle for social change was formed, supported, and maintained by the women who kept their "hands on the freedom plow." As the editors write in the introduction, "Though the voices are different, they all tell the same story--of women bursting out of constraints, leaving school, leaving their hometowns, meeting new people, talking into the night, laughing, going to jail, being afraid, teaching in Freedom Schools, working in the field, dancing at the Elks Hall, working the WATS line to relay horror story after horror story, telling the press, telling the story, telling the word. And making a difference in this world."
616 pages, Hardcover
First published September 15, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 21, 2011
Loved this book. One of the folks I know through NOA, Betty Robinson, is one of the editors and also wrote a piece. This is the stories of women of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee - and it's inspiring. It covers the range of women involved - African-American, white and Latina - some indigenous southerners and others northerners or westerners who came south. It's a different view - and gives a lot of insights to the family and college administrator resistance many of the young African-American women faced. Really worth a read.
May 6, 2011
This is an amazing collection of stories by women who were involved with the SNCC.
I gave 4 stars because this is such an important book, and some of the essays are just perfect; powerful and moving. Some of the other individual essays are not as riveting but each one is an invitation into these women's lives and a chance to hear their voices.
I can see this is an invaluable resource for research and personal remembrance.
I am so glad the time was taken to assemble these essays and preserve a vital glimpse into this era of our history.
I gave 4 stars because this is such an important book, and some of the essays are just perfect; powerful and moving. Some of the other individual essays are not as riveting but each one is an invitation into these women's lives and a chance to hear their voices.
I can see this is an invaluable resource for research and personal remembrance.
I am so glad the time was taken to assemble these essays and preserve a vital glimpse into this era of our history.
March 17, 2020
This is a comprehensive and awe-inspiring collection of personal accounts from the women in SNCC during the Civil Rights Movement in the '60's. I read it for a book club at my church. It was unforgettable and well worth reading!
June 29, 2014
This book was recommended to me by civil rights veteran, Leah Johnson Wise, as one of the best books on the civil rights movement. Each essay in this outstanding collection--a short memoir by an individual female member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee describing her experiences working in the civil rights movement in the Deep South in the 1960s--was gripping, well-edited, and illuminating. It took me a long time to get through all 600 pages, but I enjoyed reading them all, an essay at a time. The variety of backgrounds the women came from, their families' support or resistance to their involvement in the civil rights movement, the various roles they played in the movement, their experiences as women in the movement (almost uniformly empowering and equal to the men, they say), the portraits of people they worked with and of the daily terror they often lived with, what they feel they accomplished, and what they went on to do with the rest of their lives are all fascinating to read.
I especially enjoyed Janet Jemmott Moses' essay which begins, "I decided at twenty-two that I would risk my life to stay alive, to walk in the sun without shame or guilt for not doing what in my heart I knew I should do."
Barbara Brandt provides an endearing description of a local African American Mississippi woman who hosted and fed many civil rights workers in Indianola: "Mrs. Magruder, a warm sturdy old woman who seemed unconcerned with the whole thing, spent her time chatting with the other old women in the shade of her pecan trees as they pieced red, green, orange-speckled, and black-striped rags into beautiful quilts. She cooked us biscuits, cornbread, collard greens, and spaghetti and meatballs....I was always in awe of her. If not for the courage of Mrs. Magruder and women and men like her all over Mississippi, there would have been no [Freedom] summer project. No one ever talked about it, but everyone knew her home could be firebombed any night."
And Elizabeth (Betita) Sutherland Martinez expressed what many of the women feel in retrospect about their involvement with SNCC: "As righteous commitment that united thousands of human beings in a way rarely found in this country, SNCC lives. SNCC still lives in my heart, as in so many others', for its militance, courage, and dedication--and as something very personal that I can only call a feeling of family...At its best, SNCC held up a mirror to U.S. society that reflected back what this nation could become."
I highly recommend it.
I especially enjoyed Janet Jemmott Moses' essay which begins, "I decided at twenty-two that I would risk my life to stay alive, to walk in the sun without shame or guilt for not doing what in my heart I knew I should do."
Barbara Brandt provides an endearing description of a local African American Mississippi woman who hosted and fed many civil rights workers in Indianola: "Mrs. Magruder, a warm sturdy old woman who seemed unconcerned with the whole thing, spent her time chatting with the other old women in the shade of her pecan trees as they pieced red, green, orange-speckled, and black-striped rags into beautiful quilts. She cooked us biscuits, cornbread, collard greens, and spaghetti and meatballs....I was always in awe of her. If not for the courage of Mrs. Magruder and women and men like her all over Mississippi, there would have been no [Freedom] summer project. No one ever talked about it, but everyone knew her home could be firebombed any night."
And Elizabeth (Betita) Sutherland Martinez expressed what many of the women feel in retrospect about their involvement with SNCC: "As righteous commitment that united thousands of human beings in a way rarely found in this country, SNCC lives. SNCC still lives in my heart, as in so many others', for its militance, courage, and dedication--and as something very personal that I can only call a feeling of family...At its best, SNCC held up a mirror to U.S. society that reflected back what this nation could become."
I highly recommend it.
August 5, 2016
In Hands on the Freedom Plow, fifty-two women--northern and southern, young and old, urban and rural, black, white, and Latina--share their courageous personal stories of working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement.
The testimonies gathered here present a personal history of SNCC: early sit-ins, voter registration campaigns, and freedom rides; the 1963 March on Washington, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the movements in Alabama and Maryland; and Black Power and antiwar activism. Since the women spent time in the Deep South, many also describe risking their lives through beatings and arrests and witnessing unspeakable violence. These intense stories depict women, many very young, dealing with extreme fear and finding the remarkable strength to survive.
The women in SNCC acquired new skills, experienced personal growth, sustained one another, and even had fun in the midst of serious struggle. Readers are privy to their analyses of the Movement, its tactics, strategies, and underlying philosophies. The contributors revisit central debates of the struggle including the role of nonviolence and self-defense, the role of white people in a black-led movement, and the role of women within the Movement and the society at large.
Each story reveals how the struggle for social change was formed, supported, and maintained by the women who kept their "hands on the freedom plow." As the editors write in the introduction, "Though the voices are different, they all tell the same story--of women bursting out of constraints, leaving school, leaving their hometowns, meeting new people, talking into the night, laughing, going to jail, being afraid, teaching in Freedom Schools, working in the field, dancing at the Elks Hall, working the WATS line to relay horror story after horror story, telling the press, telling the story, telling the word. And making a difference in this world.
The testimonies gathered here present a personal history of SNCC: early sit-ins, voter registration campaigns, and freedom rides; the 1963 March on Washington, the Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the movements in Alabama and Maryland; and Black Power and antiwar activism. Since the women spent time in the Deep South, many also describe risking their lives through beatings and arrests and witnessing unspeakable violence. These intense stories depict women, many very young, dealing with extreme fear and finding the remarkable strength to survive.
The women in SNCC acquired new skills, experienced personal growth, sustained one another, and even had fun in the midst of serious struggle. Readers are privy to their analyses of the Movement, its tactics, strategies, and underlying philosophies. The contributors revisit central debates of the struggle including the role of nonviolence and self-defense, the role of white people in a black-led movement, and the role of women within the Movement and the society at large.
Each story reveals how the struggle for social change was formed, supported, and maintained by the women who kept their "hands on the freedom plow." As the editors write in the introduction, "Though the voices are different, they all tell the same story--of women bursting out of constraints, leaving school, leaving their hometowns, meeting new people, talking into the night, laughing, going to jail, being afraid, teaching in Freedom Schools, working in the field, dancing at the Elks Hall, working the WATS line to relay horror story after horror story, telling the press, telling the story, telling the word. And making a difference in this world.
September 25, 2013
It took something like 2 years for me to finish this book... but it was entirely worth it. An absolutely wonderful history of the civil rights era told through the experiences, memories, and reflections of women. The book educates, inspires, and brings hope to the reader.
The book is organized by grouping essays based on the states where women worked, allowing for a contrast of the challenges, opportunities, and efforts that were occurring in different regions of the South during the same time periods. The essays are vivid, passionate, and reading them is like sitting with an old friend listening to her stories.
A common thought as I read this book was "This is so different from what I was taught about SNCC in school" and definitely came away with a new understanding and appreciation of SNCC.
I previously read Gail Collins' book, The Amazing Journey of Women from the 1960s to the Present. To contrast the history documented in Gail Collins' book with the unique equality and power of the women in SNCC makes the SNCC experience all that more special.
The book is organized by grouping essays based on the states where women worked, allowing for a contrast of the challenges, opportunities, and efforts that were occurring in different regions of the South during the same time periods. The essays are vivid, passionate, and reading them is like sitting with an old friend listening to her stories.
A common thought as I read this book was "This is so different from what I was taught about SNCC in school" and definitely came away with a new understanding and appreciation of SNCC.
I previously read Gail Collins' book, The Amazing Journey of Women from the 1960s to the Present. To contrast the history documented in Gail Collins' book with the unique equality and power of the women in SNCC makes the SNCC experience all that more special.
February 5, 2016
This weighty volume is an inspiring and enlightening collection of writings by women who were part of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee from its inception in 1960 through its last days. The book is organized both chronologically and regionally, and I really value being able to read several different accounts of the same events. The contributors are an incredible array of women--black, white, Latina, Jewish, Christian, non-religious, Southern, Northern... Their reasons for joining the movement and their experiences in it vary widely.
Hands on the Freedom Plow is an invaluable work. If you've ever wondered what it was like to go down South for the Freedom Summer, or to make the choice to leave school for the movement, read these women's stories.
Hands on the Freedom Plow is an invaluable work. If you've ever wondered what it was like to go down South for the Freedom Summer, or to make the choice to leave school for the movement, read these women's stories.
Want to read
March 31, 2022Sharing, a post to LinkedIn from the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, March 31, 2022: "The Center mourns the passing of activist, photographer, and educator Dr. Doris Derby. Through her work with the SNCC, Derby saw the injustices that impacted southern African Americans and wanted to make a change, leading her to co-find the Free Southern Theater. Derby later founded the Office of African American Student Services Program at Georgia State University. Her work includes photographs and writing published in “Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC.” Doris was committed to highlighting the themes of race and African American identity through her creativity. We send our sincerest condolences to her family and loved ones."
January 12, 2011
Learning so much about courage (and fear), and what inspired so many women to take the risks of expulsion, family disapproval and violence to create a better life. It's not a light read, but it is an absorbing book, with variety provided by the many women who wrote chapters about the civil rigghts movement in the South, and their roles in it. So many of these women have come to life for me, in a way that a book that focussed on the movement "stars" would not be able to.
March 7, 2013
A must read!
July 28, 2018
Awesome!!!! Should be required reading in classrooms across the nation! I definitely have to buy my own copy because I know I'm going to want to go back and reference it often.
December 13, 2020
Everyone should read this book, but especially anyone who has any involvement in movement building/organizing. All of the tensions and conflicts come through, as do all of the realizations. Does nonviolence mean a lack of self defense? What is the good of political power without economic power? When is it appropriate to work outside of your own community? What community is your community? How can you put your own family, especially your children in danger? How are "leaders" siphoned off or convinced to become pacifiers? How long can ppl maintain intense, dangerous struggle? It just goes on and on. Also, I'm so mad that there are so many badass women, still alive, who I'd never heard of. It's incredible how quickly erasure happens.
April 6, 2021
Really powerful stories, told and curated really well. The book is massive, but that kind of underscores what a massive enterprise this was. These activists were in this for the very long haul. I always hate the word "inspiring," but these stories were that.
February 20, 2022
The chance to hear directly from women involved in the civil rights movement about how they got involved, what work they did, and what they learned is priceless. This book is a gift.
March 6, 2016
This amazing book tells the history of The Civil Rights Movement in first person accounts by the women of SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee), the more radical wing of the movement made up of youth that often worked alongside MLK's SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference). It's super inspiring to explore this historical document that was created by the particpants of the movement working together all these years later Not only do you get a multi-racial, multi-class perspective from 52 different women writing about their own experiences as organizers, workers and activists, you also get their analysis, which often reflects on how this history has been previously documented by those with more power. Especially interesting to read varying perspectives and diverse voices on gender/power within SNCC and on the burgeoning Women's Liberation Movement as I've read that stuff before and these voices are really adding to my understanding of this important historical moment in U.S. history #blackhistorymonth
February 1, 2011
Amazing.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews