"These essays—insightful, warm, funny, committed, illuminating—teach us as much about this country as about their authors, as much about the present as about the past. The book is a very important contribution toward helping us understand the freedom movement as human experience."—Charles Payne, Duke University
“An important contribution to the growing literature of the Civil Rights Movement."—Choice
"A powerful testament to a time when the goal of universal justice was in sight."—Library Journal
"These oral histories provide a range of perspectives on an important period. . . . Full of vivid insights into what really happened during those troubled times."—Booklist
"A wonderful portrayal of young women with deep and open hearts. They faced danger by daring to be traitors to their race and class; they also learned to face their own families and their fears. This is an invaluable and unique look at a hidden chapter in the history of the civil rights movement."—Julian Bond
"Riveting . . . Particularly powerful is the retrospective wisdom in the book, and the sharing about where the civil rights movement led these women.”—Other Side
"A marvelous collection of memoirs . . . Despite the voluminous scholarship on that movement, their stories constitute a missing piece of the puzzle, one that can only be known when it is told by those who lived it. . . . The early years of the civil rights movement have given us many images of courage and liberation. Deep in Our Hearts adds one more dimension to those stories with writing that is direct, honest, and occasionally lyrical."—Journal of Southern History
"A moving collection . . . For scholars of the movement, Deep in Our Hearts offers rich personal recollections of many of the movement's most famous events, from the story of organizing the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to the frantic search for murdered civil rights workers during the summer of 1964. The collection would also be a wonderful tool in the classroom because the stories make clear how the lives of these young white women were forever changed by their involvement in the movement."—Alabama Review
In these absorbing essays, nine white women write about their experiences in the Freedom Movement of the 1960s and how it shaped their lives. They come from diverse backgrounds: Southern and Northern, poor and middle-class. Each discusses how her upbringing prepared her for participation in the movement, the exhilaration of fighting for justice during Freedom Summer at sit-ins or registration drives, her grief when whites were later expelled from the movement, and the lasting impact of the movement on her life. Also interesting is each contributor's perspective on gender issues during the Civil Rights era and her individual response to the nascent women's movement. All of the authors were connected to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and knew each other slightly, which leads to some repetition of incidents when the book is read cover to cover. But, taken individually, each story is a powerful testament to a time when the goal of universal justice was in sight. An excellent choice for any library with a strong Civil Rights or women's studies collection.--Deirdre Bray Root, Middletown P.L., OH Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
