The Struggle Is Eternal: Gloria Richardson and Black Liberation (Civil Rights and Struggle)

About this book

Many prominent and well-known figures greatly impacted the civil rights movement but one of the most influential and unsung leaders of that period was Gloria Richardson. As the leader of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee (CNAC) a multifaceted liberation campaign formed to target segregation and racial inequality in Cambridge Maryland Richardson advocated for economic justice and tactics beyond nonviolent demonstrations. Her philosophies and strategiesincluding her belief that black people had a right to selfdefensewere adopted often without credit by a number of civil rights and black power leaders and activists. The Struggle Is Eternal: Gloria Richardson and Black Liberation explores the largely forgotten but deeply significant life of this central figure and her determination to improve the lives of black people. Using a wide range of source materials including interviews with Richardson and her personal papers as well as interviews with dozens of her friends relatives and civil rights colleagues Joseph R. Fitzgerald presents an all-encompassing narrative. From Richardsons childhood when her parents taught her the importance of racial pride through the next eight decades Fitzgerald relates a detailed and compelling story of her life. He reveals how Richardsons human rights activism extended far beyond Cambridge and how her leadership style and vision for liberation were embraced by the younger activists of the black power movement who would carry the struggle on throughout the late 1960s and into the 1970s.