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A Chance for Change

EBOOK

A Chance for Change

Head Start and Mississippi's Black Freedom Struggle

Crystal R. SandersSeries: John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture

5

(1)

Pages

266

Year

2016

Language

English

The University of North Carolina Press

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About

In this innovative study, Crystal Sanders explores how working-class black women, in collaboration with the federal government, created the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM) in 1965, a Head Start program that not only gave poor black children access to early childhood education but also provided black women with greater opportunities for political activism during a crucial time in the unfolding of the civil rights movement. Women who had previously worked as domestics and sharecroppers secured jobs through CDGM as teachers and support staff and earned higher wages. The availability of jobs independent of the local white power structure afforded these women the freedom to vote in elections and petition officials without fear of reprisal. But CDGM's success antagonized segregationists at both the local and state levels who eventually defunded it.

Tracing the stories of the more than 2,500 women who staffed Mississippi's CDGM preschool centers, Sanders's book remembers women who went beyond teaching children their shapes and colors to challenge the state's closed political system and white supremacist ideology and offers a profound example for future community organizing in the South.

Related Subjects

Women's Studies
Social Science
Adult Nonfiction
African American & Black Studies
Cultural & Ethnic Studies
Early Childhood (incl. Preschool & Kindergarten)
Levels
Schools
Education

Extended Details

SeriesJohn Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture

Artists

Crystal R. SandersAuthor

Similar Artists

James E. Ryan