New Books In African American Studies

Dr. Alison M. Parker’s new book Unceasing Militant: The Life of Mary Church Terrell (University of North Carolina Press, 2020) explores the life of civil rights activist and feminist, Mary Church Terrell. Born into slavery at the end of the Civil War, Terrell (1863-1954) became one of the most prominent activists of her time -- working at the intersection of rights for women and African Americans, anti-colonialism, criminal justice reform, and beyond. Her career stretched from the late nineteenth century to the civil rights movement of the 1950s -- and she was able to see the result of the NAACP’s efforts in Brown v. Board of Education before she died. The first president of the National Association of Colored Women and a founding member of the NAACP, Terrell collaborated closely with other leaders such as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Mary McLeod Bethune -- but she also was unafraid to disagree on principle and political strategy.  Unceasing Militant, the first full-length