Crystal R. Sanders, <i>A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle</i>. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. 266. $29.95 (paper).Laura Visser-Maessen <i>Robert Parris Moses: A Life in Civil Rights and Leadership at the Grassroots</i> Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. 456. $35.00 (cloth)

Previous articleNext article FreeEssay ReviewCrystal R. Sanders, A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. 266. $29.95 (paper). Laura Visser-Maessen Robert Parris Moses: A Life in Civil Rights and Leadership at the Grassroots Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. Pp. 456. $35.00 (cloth)Sonya RamseySonya Ramsey Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreCrystal R. Sanders’s groundbreaking study of the Head Start program in Mississippi and Laura Visser-Maessen’s insightful biography of Robert Parris Moses present important additions to the current historical scholarship by analyzing the connections between the push for educational access and equity and the larger civil rights struggle. Joining several other excellent studies chronicling the history of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activists in Freedom Summer, along with the biographies of Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer, these two works provide nuanced discussions of dimensions of grassroots leadership in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. Sanders’s and Visser-Maessen’s in-depth portrayals of their historical subjects enable readers to better understand the day-to-day triumphs and terrors of engaging in activism in Mississippi.1Visser-Maessen’s expansive biography of Robert Parris Moses provides a detailed narrative of a brilliant introvert who dedicated his life to fighting injustice as a SNCC leader in Mississippi. The author begins the discussion of Moses’s life by describing his childhood in Brooklyn, New York, and explains how family relationships influenced his attitudes toward racism and activism. Moses excelled as a student at the predominately white Boy’s High School. One could never have realized that Moses’s upbringing and educational experiences in integrated institutions would eventually lead him to engage in civil rights activities. While historians have traditionally placed the home of the Civil Rights Movement in the South, and while this author’s primary focus is Mississippi, Visser-Maessen’s analysis of Moses’s childhood in Brooklyn supplements the excellent scholarship on what historians call the “Jim Crow North” by explaining how Moses, a man from New York who attended northern schools, could become so moved by the sight of southern black students in the civil rights struggle that he would later decide to dedicate his life to activism. Visser-Maessen also reveals how the works of philosopher Albert Camus, whom Moses studied in college, helped him formulate his own philosophies regarding passivism, activism, and leadership.2Moses’s family left Virginia as part of a stream of African Americans seeking greater opportunities in the North and also to escape an environment rife with domestic terrorism, where black men could be lynched for minor offenses and abject racism. Moses’s family included a number ministers; however, he would define his own faith in nontraditional forms. When Moses enrolled in Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, on a basketball scholarship, he had already been exposed to leftist views from relatives and friends, as well as from interactions with progressive peers while attending summer camps sponsored by left-wing trade unionists. Despite this early exposure, he solidified his foundational philosophy regarding activism in college. A brilliant student, Moses received a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford, but when he learned about the sit-ins by college students at North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro, he felt compelled to join the movement instead: “the sit-ins hit me powerfully, in the soul, as well as the brain” (34). In discussing Moses’s childhood, educational experiences, and the unique transitions that led him to dedicate his life to activism, the author paints a precise and multilayered analysis of the internal and external forces that shaped the life of a very private and introspective figure.Sanders’s provocative monograph on Head Start in Mississippi is not a formal biography but does nevertheless provide in-depth biographical information about the founders of the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM). Whereas Visser-Maessen had the daunting task of dispelling assumptions and challenging misperceptions about Moses, already well known as one of the key leaders in SNCC’s Freedom Summer campaign, Sanders tells readers about the unsung and largely unknown black women activists, such as Hattie Safford, who fought for social justice, educational parity, and economic independence through their participation in Head Start. From her exhaustive research in archival sources and conducting oral histories, Sanders presents a riveting discussion of the courageous activism of these working-class mothers and former activists who overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles to help Head Start succeed. In answering the question “What does it mean to be an activist?” Sanders expands and redefines the traditional image of the “civil rights activist” to include women who fought against local segregationists and racist government officials in order to obtain better opportunities for their children and themselves.Both works allow readers to gain a more nuanced perspective on the meanings of grassroots participation and the ways activists in Mississippi constructed extensive networks. Several of Visser-Maessen’s chapters offer assiduous discussions of Moses’s decision to work in grassroots settings despite his elite educational background, and the author vividly depicts how his willingness to risk his own life in the face of terror helped inspire other local activists and garnered their respect and admiration. One of the book’s greatest strengths is the author’s careful consideration of how Moses rebranded and refashioned his own intellectualism to represent SNCC in a region known for local and state-sponsored domestic terrorism, which reflects positively on his exceptional leadership style. He had the ability to encourage others to boldly engage in daily acts of courage and activism, a gift called the “Bob Moses mystique” by fellow activists. Visser-Maessen shares how Moses earned this sobriquet as his persona conveyed both approachability and intimidating intellectualism. The author’s fastidious discussion of Moses’s daily activities in SNCC reveals how he reacted to the constant threats of violence and how he coped with knowing that others could be victimized in retaliation because of his efforts. As historians continue to chronicle the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi, Visser-Maessen’s work also contributes to the growing discussions of the impact of trauma or how working and living in violent situations shaped these activists’ lives.3While Sanders’s book does not focus on the efforts of the college students in Freedom Summer, her work expands the historiography of SNCC and the Civil Rights Movement by detailing how local communities used the tools that they learned from civil rights activism to push for change after the students left. In 1964, when President Lyndon B. Johnson boldly announced that his administration was going to wage a war on poverty, he constructed one of the most wide-sweeping governmental efforts to remedy poverty since the Great Depression. One of the key programs created by Johnson’s Great Society was Head Start. During this period, educational professionals contended in a plethora of studies that if young children had access to early education methods, this instruction could help them overcome later educational deficiencies. Soon the federal government began to allocate funding to establish individual early childhood education programs or supplement kindergarten programs for local school systems. While in some cities Head Start remained primarily a children’s education program, it took on another dimension in Mississippi as black women instructors used Head Start and its promise of independence as a way to break the cycles of poverty and gain new authority over their lives.Unlike the Head Start programs in some other southern urban areas that were controlled by public school educators, the program in Mississippi was led by local mothers and former civil rights activists. In these local programs, there were no higher education prerequisites for teachers. As a result, the program benefited both children and parents, because these working-class black women could quit their low-paying jobs and gain employment in Head Start. The inability of white business owners and government officials to control the financial lives of these women challenged the very foundation of white supremacy in the state. Within the confines of the Head Start classrooms, children were learning about black history and the civil rights struggles as their teachers used songs, stories, and other innovative nontraditional curricula. While whites such as Polly Greenberg remained in some leadership roles, African American women in Mississippi wielded so much power that the elimination of Head Start became a primary goal of white elected officials. One of the most significant aspects of Sanders’s work is that she places the leadership and participation of these local black women as central to the establishment of Head Start. She also gives an enthralling account of the ways these women, activists in their own right, struggled to combat a multilayered campaign to eradicate Head Start that included smear tactics, government intimidation, and the establishment of a less threatening counterpart to the CDGM—the Mississippi Action for Progress, or MAP. They also had to protect their organization from the negative influences of outside forces that wanted to use Head Start for their own benefit. Sanders includes the response by a CDGM employee who worked with the Friends of the Children of Mississippi (FCM), a collective group of Head Start employees and parent volunteers from across the state who combined forces to fight for the CDGM: “We’re tired of being told what we can do and what we can’t do. Poor people have been under other people’s programs ever since they’ve been born. We decided we’d run this program on nothing before we’d let somebody else run it for us. We’ve been bought and sold too many times.”4Sanders’s discussion of the intricate interplay between the federal and state governments’ complicated political interactions and the CDGM’s struggle to save Head Start is rife with accounts of government manipulation and deception. While these women held their stance despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles, they could not combat the larger federal government’s inability to sustain antipoverty programs in the face of rising conservative opposition. By 1967, the CDGM remained, but its new structure diminished much of the power for local activists by placing funding under the control of the local government.Both of these works complement the existing scholarship on civil rights by engaging in scholarly discussions that seek to dismantle the prevalent historiographical myths of upward progress in the Civil Rights Movement. Some of the traditional historical works on the movement also neglect the impact of the movement on these historical subjects’ later lives. Moses eventually left SNCC as the organization embraced a more nationalist stance in 1966. Visser-Maessen divulges how he dealt with depression and trauma as he attempted to rebuild his life. After the dissolution of Moses’s marriage to activist Dona Richards, his life took a dramatic turn when he escaped to Canada in an effort to avoid the draft. After living underground in Canada for several years, he formed a new romantic relationship with his ex-wife’s former friend and fellow activist Janet Jemmott. Still in fear of arrest, Moses and his new spouse decided to relocate to Tanzania. Refreshed and renewed after living for several years in Africa, Moses proceeded to embark on another journey that reflected a new direction as he blended his intellectual pursuits with his well-worn tools of engagement and activism to create a national educational program, the Algebra Project.One small weakness of this work is that while the author shares little-known information about Moses’s difficulty in adjusting to life away from the civil rights struggle, there is less focus on how a former activist overcame the trauma of his past to create a program that empowered black children. The successful implementation of the Algebra Project thrust Moses into the public spotlight once again and ignited a national conversation about the need to create innovative programs to counter the educational inadequacies disproportionately affecting African American youth. While innovative, Moses’s new avocation reflected a new reiteration of his activism. Although his work with the Algebra Project may not seem as worthy of an extensive narrative as his leadership in SNCC, he continues to leave a lasting impact on the educational experiences of the poor and children of color.Sanders’s intersectional analysis of the history of the CDGM is not a work that just tells what women were doing while the men led. By examining black women’s nontraditional leadership methods, this author’s book contributes to the growing scholarship that discusses gender during what Jacquelyn Dowd Hall termed the “long Civil Rights Movement.”5 Whether they were engaging in what Sanders calls “activist mothering” or were simply mothers who wanted more options for their children, these women saw Head Start as the ultimate representation of the progress of civil rights as they worked with the agency to rebuild and refashion their lives and open windows of opportunity for their children. Sanders includes the views of Lillie Ayers, a teacher in the program who recalled how CDGM “changed us economically. It changed our minds about how we’d been treated as black people. It started us to thinking that black people are people. Because our skin is not white does not mean we should be treated any differently.”6 Sanders’s poignant discussion of these women’s determination to succeed expands the definition of what it meant to be an activist during the modern civil rights era. While out of the scope of this author’s work, additional studies analyzing the role of African American women in Head Start on a national level would be helpful. For example, in southern cities such as Charlotte, North Carolina, where the public schools managed Head Start, black women teachers’ participation afforded them the opportunity to gain administrative positions as managers and directors that were previously unavailable.7These two studies enable scholars and readers of educational history to engage in a much needed conversation about the impact of the actions of educational activists on the progress of the Civil Rights Movement. Sanders’s work, in conjunction with Jon Hale’s excellent examination of the Freedom Schools, explains the praxis of educational activism. These protestors and mothers created instructional materials that infused basic educational instruction with the curricula that stressed opportunities to create a positive sense of self-esteem in poor black children by showing them how to love themselves and teaching them about African American history, thus instilling in them a sense of pride.8 Whether acting as a high-level SNCC administrator working with fellow activists to teach civic literacy and informing them about their voting rights or developing the innovative Algebra Project, Moses was a master teacher. These works offer a larger analysis of the role of educational activism within the Civil Rights Movement that transcends the familiar studies of school desegregation. These two authors’ monographs also explain how activists played central roles in the larger movement for educational justice outside the traditional classroom walls of a public school or university.Both of these monographs are extremely well researched and provide much needed resources for scholars and researchers interested in examining diverse leadership methods among civil rights activists. As researchers attempt to study recent historical topics, it’s clear that much of their evidential sources in the future will rely on the use of oral histories. These two writers provide excellent examples of how to infuse the words and information garnered from oral historical evidence with archival sources, government documents and secondary sources to create vibrant and living prose.Visser-Maessen’s meticulously detailed book would be a welcome addition to any upper-level undergraduate or graduate course syllabus on civil rights or the history of social foundations. The author also includes an extremely helpful historiographical essay of scholarship on Robert Moses. Sanders’s concise monograph could also be used in both undergraduate- and graduate-level courses. Since her book explains these women’s activism in relation to the War on Poverty, it could also be part of course offerings on women’s history and the history of public policy. Notes Sonya Ramsey is associate professor in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.1. Charles Payne, I Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Oakland, CA, 2007); Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Tradition (Chapel Hill, NC, 2005); and Chana Kai Lee, For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer (Urbana, IL, 2000).2. For more information about civil rights activities in the North, see Jeanne F. Theoharis and Komozi Woodard, eds., Freedom North: Black Struggles outside the South, 1940–1980 (New York, 2003).3. For an excellent analysis of the impact of the civil rights struggle upon a prominent activist, see Jeanne F. Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (New York, 2015).4. Crystal R. Sanders, A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle (Chapel Hill, NC, 2016), 174.5. Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past,” Journal of American History 91, no. 4 (2005): 1233–63.6. Sanders, Chance for Change, 84.7. Sonya Ramsey, “Caring Is Activism: Black Southern Womanist Teachers Theorizing and the Careers of Kathleen Crosby and Bertha Maxwell-Roddey, 1946–1986,” Educational Studies: Journal of the American Educational Studies Association 48, no. 3 (2012): 244–65.8. Jon Hale, The Freedom Schools: Student Activists in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement (New York, 2016). Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of African American History Volume 104, Number 1Winter 2019 A journal of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/701108 © 2019 by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

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