The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, From the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement

Septima Clark was born in Charleston at the end of the 19th century. Her mother was a laundress, and her father had been formerly enslaved. Septima’s mother insisted that her children not become “domestics” like her. Instead, Septima became a teacher. However, at the time, Black people were not allowed to be teachers in Charleston, not even for Black children. Because of these restrictions, Septima had no choice but to work on Johns Island, teaching an isolated community of formerly enslaved rice farmers. The NAACP eventually forced Charleston to hire Black teachers for Black schools, and Septima took a job teaching in the city. Over the years, Septima’s teaching career shifted to adult education as she helped older African Americans become literate. She had a gift for working with adults and helped them learn to read in a way that was immediately useful and applicable to their lives. Although African Americans had the right to vote, many were prevented from exercising their right by the need to pass a literacy test. Frustratingly, these tests didn’t test simple reading ability—they were specifically intended to prevent Black people from voting, and they were so complex that law professors often failed to pass.

McMahon describes “moral panic” as “a tool to subvert and dismantle movements that the dominant caste views as a threat” (243). During the civil rights movement, moral panic centered on the supposed threat of communism, and many aspects of the civil rights movement were labeled as communist to discredit them and create fear. Using claims that the NAACP was a communist organization, South Carolina made membership illegal for government employees. Septima was an employee of the public school system, but she refused to lie about her NAACP membership and was fired. Without her job, she had more time to focus on her activism.

Septima began teaching workshops at Highlander, where she met Rosa Parks and helped her “[become] the face of a movement” (245). She also developed an educational program for adults called Citizenship School that “became a cornerstone of the civil rights movement” (245). Her goal was to teach not only basic literacy but also the essential skills that many less educated adults lacked, like how to vote, place orders through the mail, and write to one’s congressman. She set up classes at a number of locations, but all were canceled out of fears of communism or retaliation from the government or white supremacy groups. Eventually, Septima and her fellow organizers acquired a store on Johns Island that they could use as a front and began holding classes in a hidden back room. The classes became so popular that the makeshift classroom quickly ran out of chairs. The Citizenship School was soon replicated across South Carolina’s Sea Islands, and these communities saw a 300% increase in Black voter registration.

This increase in Black voters represented a significant threat to the status quo, and opposition to the Citizenship Schools rose accordingly until Septima herself was arrested.

The United States’ system of racial segregation was a great inspiration to Hitler in Nazi Germany, and the American government worked hard to “downplay” this connection. However, 10 years after the end of World War II, people like Claudette were still facing daily segregation and discrimination. The United States was “the world’s greatest superpower” but was “still arresting and assaulting Black children for sitting on a bus” (249). The Supreme Court had recently ruled on Brown v. Board of Education, and, in theory, Black and white students were now equal. In reality, many schools refused to integrate, and students like the Little Rock Nine suffered violence and threats as they tried to do the Supreme Court’s bidding.

Oliver Brown was Brown v. Board of Education’s lead plaintiff. He filed a lawsuit after his attempt to enroll his daughter in the nearby all-white elementary school failed. The case traveled through the courts until it came to the Supreme Court. However, before a decision could be made, the chief justice died and was replaced by Earl Warren. Earl boasted a 50-year career in public service, first as a prosecutor and then as the governor of California. Although he participated in the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II and even opposed releasing these individuals, his “racist and xenophobic viewpoints would later haunt [him]” (253), and he led the Supreme Court in its unanimous decision to desegregate public schools. The Supreme Court famously called on schools to integrate “with all deliberate speed,” but instead of taking this to mean that schools should be integrated quickly, segregationists emphasized the word “deliberate” and argued that the Court had ordered them to integrate “slowly and carefully.” One district even suggested that integration by the year 2020 was a realistic time frame. Other districts decided that they would have no part in integration, now or in the future, and closed public schools entirely.

Two years after Brown v. Board of Education, Arkansas’s public schools were still segregated, and Governor Orval Faubus had no intention of changing that. Nevertheless, the NAACP had chosen nine exceptional students to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School at the start of the new school year. The governor activated the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the students from entering the school, and President Eisenhower was forced to send federal troops to Arkansas.

The 101st Airborne Division flew to Little Rock, and the commander instructed his troops to follow orders no matter their personal beliefs. On September 25, 1957, soldiers escorted the Little Rock Nine into the school building and accompanied them throughout their classes. The troops remained in place for several months, but the African American students still faced a variety of physical, mental, and emotional abuses.

Governor Faubus decided to close Little Rock’s schools rather than accept integration. Most white children attended private religious schools referred to as “segregation academies,” but African American students often lacked the resources to pursue a private education, and “the racial and socioeconomic divide” in education became deeper (264). Schools in Little Rock remained closed for an entire year, and in Prince Edward County, Virginia, opposition to school desegregation was even stronger; public schools there were closed for five years. Finally, the attorney general was forced to intervene, lamenting that Prince Edward County, along with places like communist China and North Vietnam, had some of the most limited access to education in the world.

One important aspect of the civil rights movement was ending the violence that Black women experienced at the hands of white men. One example was Recy Taylor, a married mother who was kidnapped and raped by a gang of white men while walking home one night in 1944. When Recy tried to report the crime, her house was firebombed, and all-white juries failed to convict any of the men. Black women often spoke up at great personal risk, and McMahon insists that these facts will not be “swept under the rug of today’s moral panic” (269). In 2011, when Recy was 92, she finally received an official apology from the state of Alabama.

Rosa Parks had been an activist for years when she refused to give up her seat on December 1, 1955. Boarding the bus that day, she recognized the bus driver; he had harassed and “humiliated” her before. Like Claudette, Rosa was sitting in the seats reserved for Black passengers. When the seats for white people were full, the bus driver, James Blake, demanded that Rosa move. Her refusal was the result of “decades of organizing” and “a lifetime of feeling threatened and humiliated” (270). Neither was Rosa “alone in her efforts” (270). A woman named Jo Ann Robinson, who was “so important and integral to the civil rights movement that Martin Luther King mentioned her by name in his memoir” (271), had been gathering stories of Black people being harassed by white bus drivers ever since Claudette’s arrest. Upon hearing about Rosa’s plight, Jo Ann stayed up all night, hand cranking a mimeograph machine to print 35,000 leaflets to spread the word about the injustice that Rosa had experienced. Montgomery’s Black community organized quickly, and the bus boycott was planned for December 5, 1955.

The first day of the boycott was a great success, with an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 Black residents participating. Black leaders worked quickly to extend the boycott, organizing ride shares and convincing taxi drivers to transport Black passengers for a reduced rate. The boycott lasted for months, even as organizers faced acts of violence and intimidation. Meanwhile, attorney Fred Gray had compiled the cases of several Black women, including Claudette Colvin, who had refused to cede their seats to white passengers. He planned to use these cases to fight Montgomery’s policy of racial segregation on public buses.

When Claudette was 16, she had become pregnant after an older man at a ball game raped her. She was forced to drop out of school, and her son, Raymond, was born in March of 1956. However, Claudette was still determined to make her mark on the world and appeared in court to confidently give testimony for Fred’s case.

The bus boycott continued for months as thousands of people allowed themselves to be inconvenienced in order “to take part in something bigger than themselves for a cause greater than themselves” (275). Finally, the judges ruled that segregation on Montgomery’s buses violated the 14th Amendment. Claudette heard the news on television. Alone with her baby, she “felt like she had been used for her compelling story” (275), and she struggled to find work because of the notoriety she had received from the case.

The Montgomery bus boycott ended on December 20, 1956; after 13 months of dedicated work, “the small and mighty ordinary Americans had” created important change (276). However, just a few days later, snipers began to target the newly integrated buses, and a pregnant woman was shot in both legs. The buses had to be shut down as violence shook the city.

Although some, like the bus driver, showed no remorse for their role in creating an unjust society, others, like Earl Warren, dedicated their lives and careers to undoing “past mistakes.” McMahon argues that the civil rights movement was pushed forward by brave individuals “with the least amount of political, social, and economic power” (278). No one person could do all the work required, “but they all could do something” (278).

McMahon wants readers to know that “the small are truly the mighty” and that it is important to pay attention to their stories (279). These “great Americans” live among us; they “see you and depend on your efforts” (279). Their stories create a path that “point[s] the way to liberty and justice for all” (280). They illustrate how “the weight of the world” does not rest on one set of shoulders but upon the collective (280); everyone must use their own particular strengths for the betterment of society. American history “is full of ill-equipped people […] who just went for it” despite uncertainty and fear (280). We spend a lifetime “cultivating” our character, and when the time comes, we must call on everything that we have learned and fostered to “move forward with courage” (281).