Going South: Jewish Women in the Civil Rights Movement

by Debra L. Schultz, Blanche Wiesen Cook

The story of a group of Jewish women who risked their bodies to fight racism

Many people today know that the 1964 murder in Mississippi of two Jewish men―Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman―and their Black colleague, James Chaney, marked one of the most wrenching episodes of the civil rights movement. Yet very few realize that Andrew Goodman had been in Mississippi for one day when he was killed; Rita Schwerner, Mickey's wife, had been organizing in Mississippi for six difficult months.

Organized around a rich blend of oral histories, Going South followsa group of Jewish women―come of age in the shadow of the Holocaust and deeply committed to social justice―who put their bodies and lives on the line to fight racism. Actively rejecting the post-war idyll of suburban, Jewish, middle-class life, these women were deeply influenced by Jewish notions of morality and social justice. Many thus perceived the call of the movement as positively irresistible.

Representing a link between the sensibilities of the early civil rights era and contemporary efforts to move beyond the limits of identity politics, the book provides a resource for all who are interested in anti-racism, the civil rights movement, social justice, Jewish activism and radical women's traditions.

Genres: History

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a white, Jewish person working for radical social transformation in the United States, and a history nerd, I was excited when I found this book, and it didn't disappoint. Using oral histories, it gives an account of the roles of jewish women activists who went to the south and how their commitment to racial justice stemmed from their various jewish backgrounds these people came from and what being jewish meant to them. It does not seek to construct one way of being Jewish, and holds at the forefront questions of northen and white privilege, institutional racism, sexism, and gender. Schultz did an excellent job researching and constructing a clear narrative that, for myself, helped me situate myself in a legacy of other jewish women fighting for revolutionary transformation.

[Benjamin Fasching-Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I keep returning to the story of SNCC as an organization and the adventures of individual members and there is always more to learn and more to feel. With fresh interviews bringing out the Jewishness of the experience for Jewish women who either actually went South, stayed North and did fundraising and legal work, or were already South, Schultz goes deeper into the feelings, motivations and lessons learned. Far from a "white savior" narrative, the women in this book routinely say they got more out of the experience than they gave... but they gave a lot, putting their bodies on the line, straining or even ending relationships with "friends" and relatives. They were outsiders in the Civil Rights Movement and outsiders in their Jewish communities; they took responsibilities and dared to struggle for justice at a time when the feminist movement was a bit stalled. The moral arguments are part of a spectrum of motivations that include a simple desire to escape the limited expectations for women in the mainstream during the SNCC years. Looking back, the women are able to find many different ways to be Jewish.

Taking Jewish ethics, Jewish history, or Leftist positions as a starting point that leads to joining a struggle to help a group that doesn't include you, a group who generally have fewer privileges than you, is quite a journey and reading about these women made me reflect on Jewish activism more broadly and especially with all of Gaza in a food emergency and 1.1 million people there experiencing famine I can't help but think about anti-Zionist or anti-Apartheid Jewish activists right now.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in SNCC or the Civil Rights Movement, even if the presence of Jewish women is not anywhere near the center of the story, because I usually learn the most when looking at thing from the fringes. And you don't have to be Jewish to align with someone else's fight, so you don't have to be Jewish to get something from this thoughtful work.

[Natalie Weinstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic book -- inspiring, educational, insightful, mesmerzing. I learned so much.