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

Jeanne Theoharis is the author of A More Beautiful and Terrible History as well as The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks and several other titles. She is a professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York and specializes in civil rights history, race and politics, and social movements for equality. Her books have won prizes from the NAACP, the Association of Black Women Historians, and the Brooklyn Public Library. She holds a doctorate in American Studies from the University of Michigan.

Theoharis’s body of scholarship includes much work on urban social movements and underserved demographics including African Americans, Mexican immigrants, and low-wage laborers. As a professor, she has won fellowships from major organizations such as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

Coretta Scott King was an influential activist and organizer, and while she has been remembered most as a wife to Martin Luther King Jr., her civil rights work was very influential to and beyond her husband. She was an accomplished student, musician, and a member of campus NAACP and student committees and organizations for civil rights. Even while taking on the domestic responsibilities of their household, she was her husband’s most steadfast support system in Montgomery while the family faced violent racist backlash in their community.