Publisher's Weekly Review
In this accomplished history of the school desegregation fight from the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, Devlin, a Rutgers University associate professor, offers a cogent overview of the legal strategies employed and delves into the stories of the African-American girls (and their families) who defied the ignominious public school systems of the Jim Crow South. After the landmark Supreme Court cases that broke down racial barriers in graduate education, families of school-aged girls in several states launched full-scale desegregation battles in elementary and secondary schools. The NAACP's Legal Defense Fund held off taking the grade school cases as long as possible because they intended to focus on colleges and high schools first, but eventually succumbed to grassroots pressure. Like many civil rights pioneers, the girls-such as Nancy Todd, whose straight-A grades were lowered in retaliation for her parents' activism, and Barbara Johns, who organized a student walkout to protest conditions in her high school-were selected as plaintiffs not only for their academic achievements but for their ability to stand firm in the face of white harassment. Devlin also illuminates various cultural facets of the fight, from the school clothes the students wore and tactics they used to handle verbal and physical harassment to the roles of fathers and white supporters in the movement. In an invaluable postscript, Devlin recounts what happened to some of the "firsts" later in life. The telling at some points lacks verve, but Devlin's use of diverse secondary and primary sources, including her own interviews with some of the surviving women, bring fresh perspectives. This informative account of change-making is well worth reading. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Devlin takes an unusual perspective on the story of school desegregation in the U.S., which culminated in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education, by spotlighting the fact that the majority of black students who stepped forward to integrate colleges, high schools, and elementary schools from the 1940s to the 1960s were girls. Some of these courageous women retain a place in American consciousness, such as Elizabeth Eckford and Melba Pattillo Beals of the Little Rock Nine, while many others, including Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher, who challenged the segregation of the University of Oklahoma's law school, and the McDonough Three in New Orleans were heralded at the time but have since faded into obscurity. The decade of work Devlin put into recovering this underappreciated aspect of civil-rights history is fully on display in her portraits, supported by quotes and photographs. She also offers analysis of the social and cultural skills marshaled by black Americans in resisting racism, prejudice, and discrimination and covers persistent attempts to roll back a crucial legal decision.--Hawkins, Valerie Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
April 13, 1947, holds little significance in the American historical memory, and yet that day was one in a long series that led to the legal desegregation of American schools. On that morning, Marguerite Daisy Carr, a 14-year-old black girl from Washington, D.C., attempted to enroll at Eliot Junior High School, the all-white middle school closest to her home. Carr's efforts to integrate the school, which were supported by her family and local black community, preceded the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education by seven years. Recognizing the young black girls and women who were at the forefront of the civil rights movement is the central achievement of Rachel Devlin's meticulously researched history, "A Girl Stands at the Door." Devlin's interest in the role such women played in the struggle for desegregation leads her briefly back to 1850, to Sarah Roberts, a 5-year-old African-American who lived closer to several white schools than to the one designated for black students, and who became a plaintiff in the country's first school desegregation case: Roberts v. City of Boston. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of Boston, which resisted the desegregation effort on the grounds that adequate provisions had been made for black students in the form of separate schools. Roberts's case was later cited to support the "separate but equal" ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, but it also shed public light on the underfunding and inadequate conditions prevalent in black schools - conditions that endured, virtually unchanged, for another 120 years. Devlin's account is necessarily situated largely in the 20 th century and includes the stories of Ruby Bridges and Melba Pattillo Beals (one of the "Little Rock Nine"), among many others; she reveals the creative tactics these young people used - sometimes successfully, sometimes not - to integrate public schools, a battle in which black girls outnumbered black boys as plaintiffs two to one. Devlin, a historian at Rutgers, cites Carr's case as one of the first of nearly a dozen that went to court before the N.A.A.C.R resolved to tackle the contentious matter of school desegregation. The successful class-action suit the group eventually filed featured 13 mothers and 1 father, acting on behalf of their children, and the question Devlin stresses is Why so many girls? Her answer, while somewhat unsatisfactory, is also revelatory: Like the young black American men who were inspired to serve in World War II, young black women experienced their own "call to arms" - an ethical obligation to participate in the struggle for integration. They maintained this sense of mission even when their families, aware of the verbal and physical abuse to which they were frequently subjected, encouraged them to give up their educational pursuits. As Devlin wrestles with the question "Why girls?," she offers readers a pill that is difficult to swallow. She detects "a strong, though unstated cultural assumption that the war to end school desegregation was a girls' war, a battle for which young women and girls were especially suited." Yet black girls were not obliged to serve because desegregation was considered feminine work. Rather, black girls' familiarity with domestic servitude and the most intimate forms of racism gave them an uncanny, collective ability to cope with white violence; many endured harassment and worse with extraordinary deference and self-control. Devlin reminds us that the task of publicly and constitutionally challenging racial discrimination in education was laid on the bodies of black girls. This is a reality with which America has yet to reckon. Sixty-four years after Brown v. Board, the promise of that decision, and of integration more generally, remains unfulfilled. "A Girl Stands at the Door" tells an important story about young black women who ushered in a movement. Just as black women "set the world on fire" - to quote the historian Keisha N. Blain - in global freedom struggles, young black girls took it upon themselves to stand up when others would not.
Choice Review
In A Girl Stands at the Door, Devlin (Rutgers Univ.) makes an important contribution to understanding the desegregation of the American school system in the era of the Civil Rights Movement. She closely examines the role African American girls and young women played in the desegregation of America's public schools from the 1940s to the 1960s. Included are several of the most significant cases from that era, such as Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, Webb v. District No. 90, Briggs v. Elliott, and, of course, Brown v. Board of Education, pointing out that a disproportionate number of the plaintiffs in the early desegregation lawsuits, youngsters who testified in court and were the among the first to integrate previously all-white schools, were female. Devlin explores the various motives that caused these young women to take up the cause, including their unique sense of responsibility within the civil rights movement. The book is thoroughly researched, and Devlin is to be applauded for her extensive use of interviews with various well-known and not-so-well-known former child plaintiffs and "firsts." Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. --Jeremy Monroe Richards, Gordon State College
Library Journal Review
Devlin (history, Rutgers Univ.; Relative Intimacy) reveals how the dawn of the civil rights era was led by young women, who were often portrayed by the media as young, naive, and inexperienced, or humble and knowledgeable. However, young black women were the root to social change during the civil rights movement, as they questioned American society's norms and racial discrimination. Before Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, were Ada Lois Sipuel, Esther Brown, and Lucille Bluford. These women and many others found their voice and changed the course of history as they broke through unchartered territory and set legal battles in motion. Each person profiled here brought an unusual set of skills that sparked societal change, laid the groundwork for Supreme Court cases, and paved the way for many of the women we currently admire. VERDICT A thoroughly researched, well-written work about civil rights, American history, and the momentum of political change that young people, particularly women, initiate.-Cicely Douglas, Delray Beach P.L., FL © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
