A combination of biography and legal and political histories, Quigley’s book recounts the story of Mary Church Terrell’s career of antiracist activism in Washington, D.C. Recovering Terrell’s leading role in devising the District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson case against restaurant segregation in the capital—one of those cases enfolded in the litigation culminating in Brown v. Board of Education—Quigley reminds us that “Washington was just another southern town in its treatment of African Americans” (19), especially after President Woodrow Wilson implemented segregation. Thus, symbolically and legally, “to overturn Plessy [v. Ferguson]…, the Court had to start by upending government-sanctioned segregation in Washington” (160). Best known as the founding president of the National Association of Colored Women, Terrell has long been a famous but obscure figure. Quigley’s greatest and most fascinating contribution is the reconstruction of Terrell’s reflections, friendships, family life, and relationship with her husband Judge...
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Winter 2017
November 01 2016
Just Another Southern Town: Mary Church Terrell and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Nation’s Capital. By Joan Quigley (New York, Oxford University Press, 2016) 368 pp. $29.95
Erin D. Chapman
Online ISSN: 1530-9169
Print ISSN: 0022-1953
© 2016 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Inc.
2016
MIT Press
The Journal of Interdisciplinary History (2016) 47 (3): 430–431.
Citation
Erin D. Chapman; Just Another Southern Town: Mary Church Terrell and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Nation’s Capital. By Joan Quigley (New York, Oxford University Press, 2016) 368 pp. $29.95. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 2016; 47 (3): 430–431. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/JINH_r_01041
Download citation file:
Sign in
Don't already have an account? Register
Client Account
You could not be signed in. Please check your email address / username and password and try again.
Could not validate captcha. Please try again.
Sign in via your Institution
Sign in via your InstitutionEmail alerts
14
Views
Advertisement
Cited By
Related Articles
The Mother Church: Mary Baker Eddy and the Practice of Sentimentalism
The New England Quarterly (September,2008)
More Than Roger's Wife: Mary Williams and the Founding of Providence
The New England Quarterly (September,2024)
Praying for Justice: The World Council of Churches and the Program to Combat Racism
Journal of Cold War Studies (April,2019)
Documents Relating to African American Experiences of White Congregational Churches in Massachusetts, 1773–1832
The New England Quarterly (June,2013)
Related Book Chapters
Joan Miró
Surrealist Painters and Poets: An Anthology
Joan B. Silk
Why We Cooperate
Another Voice of Reason
Critique and Disclosure: Critical Theory between Past and Future
Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Joan Deijman
A Hole in the Head: More Tales in the History of Neuroscience