Freedom's Daughters - by Lynne Olson (Paperback)

About the Book

The first and only comprehensive history of the enormous contributions of women--black and white, famous and unknown--to the fight for civil rights in this country. "Freedom's Daughters" spans four generations and introduces more than 60 women, some well-known, others never written about before.

Book Synopsis

The first comprehensive history of the vital role women--both black and white--played in the civil rights movement.

In this groundbreaking and absorbing book, credit finally goes where credit is due--to the bold women who were crucial to the success of the civil rights movement. From the Montgomery bus boycott to the lunch counter sit-ins to the Freedom Rides, Lynne Olson skillfully tells the long-overlooked story of the extraordinary women who were among the most fearless, resourceful, and tenacious leaders of the civil rights movement.

Freedom's Daughters includes portraits of more than sixty women--many until now forgotten and some never before written about--from key figures like Ida B. Wells, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ella Baker, and Septima Clark to some of the smaller players who represent the hundreds of women who each came forth to do her own small part and who together ultimately formed the mass movements that made the difference. Freedom's Daughters puts a human face on the civil rights struggle--and shows that that face was often female.

Review Quotes

Catherine Clinton The Washington Post Book World With rigor and grace, [Olson] brings these female freedom fighters to the forefront of America's most powerful social movement...Freedom's Daughters is about the struggles of twentieth-century activist women who empowered themselves through campaigns for social justice so that the next generation could inherit, if not a better world, then the strength and example to engage in worthy struggles of its own.

Ruth Rosen Los Angeles Times Book Review The most stunning synthesis of women's role in America's endless and episodic struggle for racial equality to date.

Susan Brownmiller The New York Times Book Review Freedom's Daughters expertly mines oral history collections housed in Southern universities, biographies and testaments published in the last decade by Southern university presses, and more general works by historians. It was a smart and salutary idea to illuminate the role of women in one volume.

About the Author

Lynne Olson has been a reporter and writer since 1970. After working for the AP and the Baltimore Sun for a decade, Olson became a freelance writer in 1981, writing for American Heritage, Smithsonian, Working Woman, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Ms., Elle, Glamour, and Baltimore Magazine. She is the author of eight books, including the New York Times bestseller Madame Fourcade's Secret War, as well as Last Hope Island and Citizens of London. She lives in Washington D.C. with her husband, with whom she has co-authored two books.