African American women have played significant roles in the ongoing struggle for freedom and equality, but relatively little is known about many of these leaders and activists. Most accounts of the civil rights movement focus on male leaders and the organizations they led, leaving a dearth of information about the countless black women who were the backbone of the struggle in local communities across the country. At the local level women helped mold...

In Black Victory, Darlene Clark Hine examines a pivotal breakthrough in the struggle for black liberation through the voting process. She details the steps and players in the 1944 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Smith v. Allwright, a precursor to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. She discusses the role that NAACP attorneys such as Thurgood Marshall played in helping black Texans regain the right denied them by white Texans in the Democratic Party: the right...