Just Another Southern Town

Rezensionen / Stimmen

"A retelling of the events leading up to the landmark civil rights Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., Inc., which invalidated segregated restaurants in the city in 1953... Quigley expertly analyzes the legal drama of the court case, which was not without complication or difficulty. The author also smartly references the dissent and turmoil of the Supreme Court at the time, which had to deal with cases like Isserman and the trial of
the Rosenbergs, to explore how the court unanimously voted in favor of Terrell, a clear signal that the age of segregation was unequivocally over. Quigley's narrative of Terrell and her court case is
especially relevant in the wake of numerous well-publicized killings of black citizens by police officers and the latest wave of black activism. " --Kirkus Reviews
"This work places Terrell's long and active life in context by providing an important history of the struggle against segregation in Washington, D.C., and demonstrating that the legal victories of the 1950s were the result of decades of active resistance. For readers interested in the civil rights movement and in the history of Washington, D.C." Library Journal
"Joan Quigley's Just Another Southern Town isn't 'just another' biography. In gripping detail, it traces the inspiring story of Mary Church Terrell, whose crusade for civil rights in the nation's capital took her all the way to the Supreme Court in a life that spanned Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the landmark school desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education. Just Another Southern Town is a powerful reminder of the difference anyone,
especially an elderly black woman, can make in the life of a people and its laws." -Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University
"During most of Mary Church Terrell's ninety-one years, Washington D.C. was indeed just another Southern town where she could not eat in restaurants that catered to whites or sit wherever she chose in movie theaters. This incisive biography of Terrell and her victorious quest for dignity and equality of treatment fills an important place in the history of the civil rights movement." -James M. McPherson, George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States
History, Princeton University
"The story of Mary Church Terrell is as inspiring as it is vital in understanding the demise of legal segregation. Joan Quigley has done a remarkable job chronicling Terrell's impassioned fight for equal rights in the years before Brown v. Board of Education, and Just Another Southern Town is an important addition to civil rights literature." -Gilbert King, author of the Pulitzer prize-winning Devil in the Grove
"The headline 'Eat Anywhere' seems so simple. But without the determination and diligence of people like Mary Church Terrell, it would be only a wistful dream for African-Americans in this country. Joan Quigley illuminates the story of Terrell with exquisite research, rich context and heartfelt care." -Robin Givhan, author of The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History
"By focusing on an unjustly neglected case and a highly intelligent protagonist who knew all the key actors and left a detailed diary, Joan Quigley makes the early years of the modern civil rights movement come alive. She has a rare gift for making us care about the hopes, frailties, and disappointments of specific individuals by setting them in an illuminating, sure-handed account of large political forces and legal ideas." -Vincent Blasi, Corliss Lamont
Professor of Civil Liberties, Columbia Law School
"Quigley's greatest and most fascinating contribution
is the reconstruction of Terrell's reflections, friendships, family life, and
relationship with her husband Judge Robert Terrell through heretofore
un-accessed diaries and correspondence." - Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Volume 47, Number 3, Winter 2017.