I had a great time speaking on Left of Black with Mark Anthony Deal of Duke University about how rape and resistance to rape sits at the center of the modern Civil Rights Movement. We talked about Recy Taylor, Gertrude Perkins and the gendered roots of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott; the 1959 Tallahassee rape case and Betty Jean Owens bold testimony; and other cases. We talked about how I found these cases in the archives and why it’s important that we listen to black women’s testimony about racialized sexual violence.
