An Unseen Light

Black Struggles for Freedom in Memphis, Tennessee

Aram Goudsouzian, Charles W. McKinney, Aram Goudsouzian, Charles W. McKinneyJr., Charles W. McKinney Jr.

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780813153179
  9780813175515
• eBook ISBN:
  9780813175539
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

In An Unseen Light: Black Struggles for Freedom in Memphis, Tennessee, eminent and rising scholars present a multidisciplinary examination of African American activism in Memphis from the dawn of emancipation to the twenty-first century. Together, they investigate episodes such as the 1940 "Reign of Terror" when black Memphians experienced a prolonged campaign of harassment, mass arrests, and violence at the hands of police. They also examine topics including the relationship between the labor and civil rights movements, the fight for economic advancement in black communities, and the impact of music on the city's culture. Covering subjects as diverse as politics, sports, music, activism, and religion, An Unseen Light illuminates Memphis's place in the long history of the struggle for African American freedom and human dignity.

Table of contents

• Front cover
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• “In the Hands of the Lord”
• “The Saving of Black America’s Body and White America’s Soul”
• Equal Power
• “There Will Be No Discrimination”
• Taylor-Made
• “We’ll Have No Race Trouble Here”
• Power and Protection
• Black Memphians and New Frontiers
• “Since I Was a Citizen, I Had the Right to Attend the Library”
• “You Pay One Hell of a Price to Be Black”
• “If the March Cannot Be Here, Then Where?”
• Nonviolence, Black Power, and the Surveillance State in Memphis’s War on Poverty
• Beyond 1968
• Beauty and the Black Student Revolt
• After Stax
• Black Workers Matter
• Coda
• Contributors
• Index