At H-Net, Antonio Lopez (University of Texas, El Paso) submits a glowing and thorough review of Want to Start a Revolution? Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle, edited by Dayo F. Gore, Jeanne Theoharis, and Komozi Woodard.
Want to Start a Revolution? successfully meets its three goals of expanding the boundaries of black radicalism, shedding light on the labor women performed to sustain radical movements, and exploring the gender politics of black women activists (pp. 3-4). Collectively, the essays will provide activists, students, and academic specialists with powerful insights into post-World War II black freedom struggles, the de-colonial imaginary in black feminist thought, and the lives of women who joined and guided movements to transform an oppressive society. This collection will also be useful to teachers aiming to introduce students to the politics of historical memory, and the recent distortions of civil rights discourse. We owe a debt of gratitude to the editors and contributors to this collection for reminding us that in the postwar struggle for revolutionary change, as now, women of color hold up more than half the sky.
