Susan Youngblood Ashmore – författare

Carry It On is an in-depth study of how the local struggle for equality in Alabama fared in the wake of new federal laws—the Civil Rights Act, the Economic Opportunity Act, and the Voting Rights Act. Susan Youngblood Ashmore provides a sharper definition to changes set in motion by the fall of legal segregation. She focuses her detailed story on the Alabama Black Belt and on the local projects funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), the federal agency that supported programs in a variety of cities and towns in Alabama. Black Belt activists who used OEO funds understood that the structural underpinnings of poverty were key components of white supremacy, says Ashmore. They were motivated not only to end poverty but also to force local governments to comply with new federal legislation aimed at achieving racial equality on a number of fronts.Ashmore looks closely at the interactions among local activists, elected officials, businesspeople, landowners, bureaucrats, and others who were involved in or affected by OEO projects. Carry It On offers a nuanced picture of the OEO, an agency too broadly criticized; a new look at the rise of southern Black Power; and a compelling portrait of local citizens struggling for control over their own lives. Ashmore provides a more complete understanding of how southerners worked to define for themselves how freedom would come during the years shaped by the civil rights movement and the war on poverty.

Another addition to the Southern Women series, Alabama Women celebrates women’s histories in the Yellowhammer State by highlighting the lives and contributions of women and enriching our understanding of the past and present. Exploring such subjects as politics, arts, and civic organizations, this collection of eighteen biographical essays provides a window into the social, cultural, and geographic milieux of women’s lives in Alabama.Featured individuals include Augusta Evans Wilson, Maria Fearing, Julia S. Tutwiler, Margaret Murray Washington, Pattie Ruffner Jacobs, Ida E. Brandon Mathis, Ruby Pickens Tartt, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, Sara Martin Mayfield, Bess Bolden Walcott, Virginia Foster Durr, Rosa Parks, Lurleen Burns Wallace, Margaret Charles Smith, and Harper Lee.Contributors:-Nancy Grisham Anderson on Harper Lee-Harriet E. Amos Doss on the enslaved women surgical patients of J. Marion Sims-Wayne Flynt and Marlene Hunt Rikard on Pattie Ruffner Jacobs-Caroline Gebhard on Bess Bolden Walcott-Staci Simon Glover on the immigrant women in metropolitan Birmingham-Sharony Green on the Townsend Family-Sheena Harris on Margaret Murray Washington-Christopher D. Haveman on the women of the Creek Removal Era-Kimberly D. Hill on Maria Fearing-Tina Naremore Jones on Ruby Pickens Tartt-Jenny M. Luke on Margaret Charles Smith-Rebecca Cawood McIntyre on Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald and Sara Martin Mayfield-Rebecca S. Montgomery on Ida E. Brandon Mathis-Paul M. Pruitt Jr. on Julia S. Tutwiler-Susan E. Reynolds on Augusta Evans Wilson-Patricia Sullivan on Virginia Foster Durr-Jeanne Theoharis on Rosa Parks-Susan Youngblood Ashmore on Lurleen Burns Wallace