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

Chapter 8 is short and highlights popular opposition to the civil rights movement. The author states that the March on Washington, emblematic of the movement as a whole, “is now pictured as one of the most American events of the twentieth century—the power of US democracy made real in the quarter of a million people who gathered on the National Mall that day” (173). This image ignores that “most Americans disapproved of [the march]” and regarded civil rights activists as dangers to society (173). Those deemed rebels lived in fear of punishment (176).

The constant ridicule and scrutiny seriously impacted the mental health and personal wellbeing of its targets. Rosa Parks, for example, wrote about her loneliness and frustration; “[T]hose who thought and acted outside the norms of society” were made to question their sense of reality (175). There were consequences for association with radical activism during every phase of the movement. Students in SNCC, for example, often met discipline by their colleges and their parents, demonstrating that Black people had not coalesced around a definitive cause or strategy. Theoharis stresses the “disagreement within the Black community about appropriate tactics and the best way forward, given the fearsome climate” to elaborate on the personal difficulties activists faced (177).