In this Book
- A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi's Black Freedom Struggle
- Book
- 2016
- Published by: The University of North Carolina Press
- Series: John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture
summary
In this innovative study, Crystal Sanders explores how working-class black women, in collaboration with the federal government, created the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM) in 1965, a Head Start program that not only gave poor black children access to early childhood education but also provided black women with greater opportunities for political activism during a crucial time in the unfolding of the civil rights movement. Women who had previously worked as domestics and sharecroppers secured jobs through CDGM as teachers and support staff and earned higher wages. The availability of jobs independent of the local white power structure afforded these women the freedom to vote in elections and petition officials without fear of reprisal. But CDGM's success antagonized segregationists at both the local and state levels who eventually defunded it.
Tracing the stories of the more than 2,500 women who staffed Mississippi's CDGM preschool centers, Sanders's book remembers women who went beyond teaching children their shapes and colors to challenge the state's closed political system and white supremacist ideology and offers a profound example for future community organizing in the South.
Tracing the stories of the more than 2,500 women who staffed Mississippi's CDGM preschool centers, Sanders's book remembers women who went beyond teaching children their shapes and colors to challenge the state's closed political system and white supremacist ideology and offers a profound example for future community organizing in the South.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Title, Copyright
- pp. i-vi
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xi-xii
- Abbreviations and Acronyms Used in the Text
- pp. xiii-xvi
- Introduction: Taking Rights
- pp. 1-10
- CHAPTER ONE: Reading Is Power
- pp. 11-31
- CHAPTER FOUR: Senator Stennis Is Watching
- pp. 107-145
- CHAPTER FIVE: Say It Isn’t So, Sarge
- pp. 146-185
- Epilogue: A Constant Struggle
- pp. 186-192
- Bibliography
- pp. 225-238
Additional Information
ISBN
9781469627823
Related ISBN(s)
9781469627809, 9781469627816, 9798890849199
MARC Record
OCLC
945612385
Pages
266
Launched on MUSE
2016-12-06
Language
English
Open Access
No