A More Beautiful and Terrible History Summary
Jeanne Theoharis

A More Beautiful and Terrible History Overview

A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History by Joanne Theoharis subverts mainstream narratives around the civil rights movement and presents a fuller and more accurate history of that era. Theoharis challenges the idea that the civil rights movement resulted in a post-racial America and that the activists of today are not living up to the examples set by their predecessors. In her history, Theoharis notes that the victories of the civil rights movement were not inevitable, but required extreme persistence, hard work, and sacrifice on the part of activists who faced extreme opposition. A More Beautiful and Terrible History explores themes of memorializing national narratives, the connection between past and present politics, the difference between symbolic acts and substantive action, intersectional justice, and personal hate versus systemic racism.