Our Minds on Freedom: Women and the Struggle for Black Equality in Louisiana, 1924-1967

In Our Minds on Freedom, Shannon Frystak explores the roles women played in civil rights activism in Louisiana from the 1920s through the 1960s. Women in Louisiana led unions and civil rights organizations and agitated for voting rights and equal treatment in public and private arenas. Black and white women worked together to organize the 1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott, which inspired the famous Montgomery bus boycott two years later; alter the system of unequal education throughout the state; and integrate New Orleans schools after the 1954 Brown decision. Frystak vividly describes the dangers women faced hosting civil rights workers, teaching in Freedom Schools, and canvassing for voter registration.

As Frystak shows, the civil rights movement allowed women to step out of their prescribed roles as wives, mothers, and daughters and become actors- even leaders- in a social structure largely dominated by men. Our Minds on Freedom is a welcome addition to the literature of the civil rights movement and will intrigue those interested in African American history, women’s history, Louisiana, or the U.S. South.