A Girl Stands at the Door
The Generation of Young Women Who Desegregated America's Schools
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4157155 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jo Ann O Robinson (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 106 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 257-258 |
| Publication date | 2019-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jaz311 |
| OpenAlex | W2947781248 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
Rachel Devlin draws the title of her book from the closing argument for the African American plaintiff Lucile Bluford in the 1940 case Bluford v. Canada. Challenging the University of Missouri's refusal to admit her to its Missouri School of Journalism, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People attorney Charles Hamilton Houston declared, “a girl stands at the door, and a generation waits outside”(p. 27). The book is a paean to black women who, in their youth, assumed the daunting roles of petitioners and then as “firsts” in public school desegregation—a process that was foreshadowed in the 1850 case Roberts v. City of Boston, peaked in 1954 with the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, and quickly devolved into backlash, broken promises, and social tensions that remain unresolved. Devlin's narrative begins in the 1930s. Chapters 1 through 4, reaching the 1950s, make a strong case for recognizing the impact of women on the origins and consequences of the Brown decision. In three additional chapters she reviews “the road to Brown” and recounts the vicious means of intimidation that white students, teachers, and administrators visited upon the pioneers of school desegregation and the courage and social skills with which the female pioneers stood their ground. Geographically, she examines cases in Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and the four states where the cases argued as Brown originated—South Carolina, Virginia, Kansas, and Delaware, as well as Washington, D.C
Art · Courage · Desegregation · Girl · Narrative · Plaintiff · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Supreme court · Victory · White (mutation · Diverse Education Studies and Reforms · History · Law · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,6 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2025 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |