Radicalism at the Crossroads

Dayo F. Gore is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and Critical Gender Studies at the University of California, San Diego and has previously taught at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She is the co-editor (with Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard) of Want to Start a Revolution? Radical Women in the Black Freedom Struggle (NYU Press, 2009).

"Dayo Gore's groundbreaking study details the "collective political biography" of largely understudied Black communist-oriented women (4). Contributing to the fields of Black Studies, Women's Studies, and History, Gore sheds light on the ways in which these women organized and created tightly knit networks. Utilizing a range of rare sources such as archival papers, FBI files, government documents, oral histories, and interviews, Gore explores the intellectual and political contributions of several women including Claudia Jones, Alice Childress, Lorraine Hansberry, Beulah Richardson, and Vicki Garvin. Identifying these women as "protofeminists," she recognizes the way in which they set the precedent and groundwork for organizing around issues of gender and sexual politics" - National Political Science Review "Radicalism at the Crossroadsis an important study that will be extremely useful and challenging to historians of race, gender, social movements, and leftist activism in the United States during the Cold War." (Journal of African American History) "Radicalism at the Crossroads is necessary reading for all interested in black history and women's history, and is an invaluable contribution to the growing library of black leftist scholarship." - Carole Boyce Davies (Journal of American History) "What really shines throughand what constitutes the major scholarly contributionis Gore's excavation of crucial foundations of the more familiar civil rights stories." - Theresa Kaminski (H-Net Reviews) "[A] unique contribution to American history." (Rhetoric & Public Affairs) "Dayo Gore is a relatively young historian but her brilliant scholarship has already changed how we define the American Left and how we view the face of American radical politics. Her newest book is a powerful addition to her paradigm‒shifting body of work. It is a must‒read for students and scholars of Black and progressive politics, and will provide a vital history lesson for contemporary activists." - Barbara Ransby,author of Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision "With meticulous research, shimmering prose, and laser-like analysis, Dayo F. Gore has added a wholly new and original chapter to the corpus of Black Studies, Womens Studies and the history of the U.S. Left." - Gerald Horne,author of Race Women: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois "With this rich book, Dayo Gore rewrites the history of black radicalism, feminism, and the American left. She shows us how a network of African American women organized for black womens rights in the 1940s and 1950s and brought their perduring political vision of race, gender, and class to social justice movements of the Cold War era." - Joanne Meyerowitz,Yale University

• Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction 1 Forging a Community of Radical Intellectuals and Activists 2 In Defense of Black Womanhood 3 Reframing Civil Rights Activism during the Cold War 4 Race and Gender at Work 5 From Freedom to Freedomways ConclusionCentering Black Women on the Left Notes Bibliography Index About the Author