Unlikely Dissenters: White Southern Women in the Fight for Racial Justice, 1920–1970 by Anne Stefani (review)

Unlikely Dissenters: White Southern Women in the Fight for Racial Justice, 1920–1970 focuses on those white southern women who opposed racial discrimination from the 1920s through the 1960s and, in the process, emancipated themselves from society’s constraints by stepping outside the expected behavior patterns for their race and gender. Anne Stefani identifies two generations of activists: the older generation, those born between the late nineteenth century and World War I, and the younger generation, often students, born closer to World War II. She also points out women on the cusp who bridged the generations. All the women shared similar experiences regarding the expectations for white southern ladies, the influence of religious teachings, and the discrepancies they saw between the concepts of white supremacy they learned as children and the values they held as adults. While the older women used propriety as a tool to accomplish their goals, the younger generation openly defied gender norms. In both cases, as white southerners, the women felt guilt for belonging to the oppressing group, yet they too were victims of patriarchy and remained deeply attached to the South.

Stefani begins by exploring the prescriptions of southern society and how those norms impacted the relationships between white women and men and between white women and African Americans, especially black men. From there, she presents the material chronologically. In the 1920s, white southern women organized interracial activities because they believed contact across race would improve understanding. They defied racial norms while diffusing criticism by maintaining standards of respectability. After Brown v. Board of Education (1954) the women focused on education as an acceptable forum for women to advance civil rights. From one generation to the next, white women’s tactics shifted from a reliance on their status as southern ladies to direct confrontation in the predominantly black-led, nonviolent, religious movement of the 1960s. The younger generation frequently refrained from taking positions of leadership, choosing instead to serve and to act as bridges to black leaders. Increasingly isolated as family and friends rejected them, these white southern women, young and old, developed a sense of sisterhood that included a growing awareness of gender discrimination. Although feminism became a central issue in their lives, they did not identify with the national feminist movement led by middle-class white women who had no experience with southern racism. Hence, the southern dissenters continued to place a priority on fighting racism over fighting sexism.

By examining the South more broadly than have earlier works, Stefani demonstrates the solidarity between white southern women activists. Covering the civil rights movement across five decades enables the reader to see it as a continuum where the dissenters overlapped as they passed the baton from one generation to the next in the struggle for equality. Stefani also takes issue with the reputation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) for gender exploitation, finding SNCC a source of empowerment and a catalyst for personal growth.

Unlikely Dissenters is extensively researched. Making use of oral histories and personal and organizational manuscripts, Stefani offers definitive examples to support her analysis throughout. Particularly telling are the comparisons she draws between the women’s personal correspondence and their public statements as they came to recognize the intersections between racial, gender, and class discrimination.

The book will serve as a valuable resource for anyone studying white southern women, women’s civil rights activism, and women’s activism across race, region, and time. Stefani presents her arguments logically and persuasively, although at times the book becomes tedious in repeating its overall thesis. Nevertheless, Stefani demonstrates a grasp of southern racism and womanhood to rival that of people who lived their entire life in the South.