Spell Freedom - by Elaine Weiss (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"Through elegant writing, masterful storytelling, and prodigious research, Weiss takes us on a journey for freedom." --Carol Anderson, New York Times bestselling author The acclaimed author of the "stirring, definitive, and engrossing" (NPR) The Woman's Hour returns with the story of four activists whose audacious plan to restore voting rights to Black Americans laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement.In the summer of 1954, educator Septima Clark and small businessman Esau Jenkins traveled to rural Tennessee's Highlander Folk School, an interracial training center for social change founded by Myles Horton, a white southerner with roots in the labor movement. There, the trio united behind a shared mission: preparing Black southerners to pass the daunting Jim Crow era voter registration literacy tests that were designed to disenfranchise them. Risking their lives and livelihoods, they created the underground Citizenship Schools project, preparing Black southerners to pass the voter registration literacy tests and have a voice in their nation's democracy. By the time the Voting Rights Act was signed into law in 1965, over nine hundred citizenship school classes had been established--often in secret locations--across the south, quietly educating tens of thousands of Black citizens to read and write, demand their civil rights, and vote. The program nurtured a generation of activists--many of them women--trained in community organizing, political action, and tactics of resistance, who became the grassroots foundation of the Civil Rights Movement. In the vein of Hidden Figures and Devil in the Grove, Spell Freedom is the exhilarating story of ordinary citizens confronting injustice with courage and creativity, offering a revealing narrative "that illuminates not only the past but also a path forward" (Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize winner).

Review Quotes

"Spell Freedom captures the courageous battle's painstaking planning, the victories and setbacks. It's uplifting, even as it devastates." -Chicago Tribune "An inspiring story of dedicated crusaders who put their lives on hold to demand justice for their communities." -Booklist "A richly researched and detailed new history of the underground schools that sprang up throughout the South.... Although Civil Rights leaders march through these pages, Weiss prefers the company of the unsung, the members of the irresistible army, the beauticians and bus drivers who risked their lives and their families' well-being... Weiss is the author of two previous histories that elevated ordinary women doing extraordinary things [and] is highly attuned to the ingrained patriarchy of the era, including in much of the Civil Rights Movement, where women were the boots on the ground while men took leadership roles (and higher salaries)." -Phil Kloer, Atlanta Journal Constitution

About the Author

Elaine Weiss is an award-winning journalist, author, and public speaker. In addition to Spell Freedom, she is the author of Fruits of Victory: The Woman's Land Army of the Great War; and The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote. Elaine lives with her husband in Baltimore, Maryland. Find out more at ElaineWeiss.com.