Just Another Southern Town: Mary Church Terrell and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Nation's Capital

by Joan Quigley

Overview

In January of 1950, Mary Church Terrell, an 86-year-old charter member of the NAACP, headed into Thompson's Restaurant, just a few blocks from the White House, and requested to be served. She and her companions were informed by the manager that they could not eat in his establishment, because they were "colored." Terrell, a former suffragette and one of the country's first college-educated African American women, took the matter to court. Three years later, the Supreme Court vindicated her outrage: District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., Inc. was decided in June 1953, invalidating the segregation of restaurants and cafes in the nation's capital.

In Just Another Southern Town, Joan Quigley recounts an untold chapter of the civil rights movement: an epic battle to topple segregation in Washington, the symbolic home of American democracy. At the book's heart is the formidable Mary Church Terrell and the test case she mounts seeking to enforce Reconstruction-era laws prohibiting segregation in D.C. restaurants. Through the prism of Terrell's story, Quigley reassesses Washington's relationship to civil rights history, bringing to life a pivotal fight for equality that erupted five years before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a Montgomery bus and a decade before the student sit-in movement rocked segregated lunch counters across the South.

At a time when most civil rights scholarship begins with Brown v. Board of Education, Just Another Southern Town unearths the story of the nation's capital as an early flashpoint on race. A rich portrait of American politics and society in the mid-20th century, it interweaves Terrell's narrative with the courtroom drama of the case and the varied personalities of the justices who ultimately voted unanimously to prohibit segregated restaurants. Resonating with gestures of courage and indignation that radiate from the capital's streets and sidewalks to its marble-clad seats of power, this work restores Mary Church Terrell and the case that launched a crusade to their rightful place in the pantheon of civil rights history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199371518
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/29/2016
Pages:	378
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Joan Quigley is a lawyer and journalist who lives outside of Washington, D.C. She is the author of The Day the Earth Caved In: An American Mining Tragedy.

Table of Contents

Prologue: January 27, 1950
Chapter One: On to the Battlefield
Chapter Two: The Greatest Woman that We Have
Chapter Three: They Come Standing Erect
Chapter Four: An Example for All the World
Chapter Five:The Radicalization of Mary Church Terrell
Chapter Six: Segregation Will Go
Chapter Seven: This Thing Can Be Licked
Chapter Eight; A Bigger Step Is in Order
Chapter Nine: Eat Anywhere
Epilogue: Until Full and Final Victory

Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

"A retelling of the events leading up to the landmark civil rights Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., Inc., which invalidated segregated restaurants in the city in 1953... Quigley expertly analyzes the legal drama of the court case, which was not without complication or difficulty. The author also smartly references the dissent and turmoil of the Supreme Court at the time, which had to deal with cases like Isserman and the trial of the Rosenbergs, to explore how the court unanimously voted in favor of Terrell, a clear signal that the age of segregation was unequivocally over. Quigley's narrative of Terrell and her court case is especially relevant in the wake of numerous well-publicized killings of black citizens by police officers and the latest wave of black activism. " —Kirkus Reviews

"This work places Terrell's long and active life in context by providing an important history of the struggle against segregation in Washington, D.C., and demonstrating that the legal victories of the 1950s were the result of decades of active resistance. For readers interested in the civil rights movement and in the history of Washington, D.C." Library Journal

"Joan Quigley's Just Another Southern Town isn't 'just another' biography. In gripping detail, it traces the inspiring story of Mary Church Terrell, whose crusade for civil rights in the nation's capital took her all the way to the Supreme Court in a life that spanned Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the landmark school desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education. Just Another Southern Town is a powerful reminder of the difference anyone, especially an elderly black woman, can make in the life of a people and its laws." -Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University

"During most of Mary Church Terrell's ninety-one years, Washington D.C. was indeed just another Southern town where she could not eat in restaurants that catered to whites or sit wherever she chose in movie theaters. This incisive biography of Terrell and her victorious quest for dignity and equality of treatment fills an important place in the history of the civil rights movement." -James M. McPherson, George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States History, Princeton University

"The story of Mary Church Terrell is as inspiring as it is vital in understanding the demise of legal segregation. Joan Quigley has done a remarkable job chronicling Terrell's impassioned fight for equal rights in the years before Brown v. Board of Education, and Just Another Southern Town is an important addition to civil rights literature." -Gilbert King, author of the Pulitzer prize-winning Devil in the Grove

"The headline 'Eat Anywhere' seems so simple. But without the determination and diligence of people like Mary Church Terrell, it would be only a wistful dream for African-Americans in this country. Joan Quigley illuminates the story of Terrell with exquisite research, rich context and heartfelt care." -Robin Givhan, author of The Battle of Versailles: The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History

"By focusing on an unjustly neglected case and a highly intelligent protagonist who knew all the key actors and left a detailed diary, Joan Quigley makes the early years of the modern civil rights movement come alive. She has a rare gift for making us care about the hopes, frailties, and disappointments of specific individuals by setting them in an illuminating, sure-handed account of large political forces and legal ideas." -Vincent Blasi, Corliss Lamont Professor of Civil Liberties, Columbia Law School

"Quigley's greatest and most fascinating contribution is the reconstruction of Terrell's reflections, friendships, family life, and relationship with her husband Judge Robert Terrell through heretofore un-accessed diaries and correspondence." - Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Volume 47, Number 3, Winter 2017.

From the Publisher

12/01/2015
Quigley's (The Day the Earth Caved In) historical account is framed by the Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., Inc., which began in 1950 when 86-year-old Mary Terrell was refused service at a Washington, D.C. diner. The author uses Terrell's life story to focus on the long fight for equal rights in the U.S. capital. Terrell, the daughter of Robert Church, a prominent Memphis businessman who was the subject of Preston Lauterbach's recent biography, Beale Street Dynasty, was an active journalist and speaker who advocated for equal rights for women and African Americans. While her subject's life is well-documented, Quigley often strays from Terrell's story to provide details about people and events related to Terrell and the Thompson case. VERDICT This work places Terrell's long and active life in context by providing an important history of the struggle against segregation in Washington, D.C., and demonstrating that the legal victories of the 1950s were the result of decades of active resistance. For readers interested in the civil rights movement and in the history of Washington, D.C.—Nicholas Graham, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Library Journal

2015-12-17
A retelling of the events leading up to the landmark civil rights Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., Inc., which invalidated segregated restaurants in the city in 1953. The legal history of segregation in the United States is often bookended by two cases: Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the pernicious "separate but equal" precedent in 1896, and Brown v. Board of Education, which overturned Plessy and made state-sponsored segregation unconstitutional. However, as lawyer and journalist Quigley (The Day the Earth Caved In: An American Mining Tragedy, 2007) argues, the civil rights movement had other landmark cases and successes that created the momentum necessary for the Brown ruling. Among them is the case of Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954). In 1950, Terrell, an Oberlin-educated daughter of former slaves, was denied service at a popular Washington, D.C., cafeteria called Thompson's Restaurant, only blocks away from the White House. The symbolism of the restaurant's location was lost, however. Terrell, a lifelong activist and the first president of the National Association of Colored Women and founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, used her political clout to challenge the discriminatory practices of the restaurant. Quigley expertly analyzes the legal drama of the court case, which was not without complication or difficulty. (A judge initially dismissed charges against Thompson.) The author also smartly references the dissent and turmoil of the Supreme Court at the time, which had to deal with cases like Isserman and the trail of the Rosenbergs, to explore how the court unanimously voted in favor of Terrell, a clear signal that the age of segregation was unequivocally over. Quigley's narrative of Terrell and her court case is especially relevant in the wake of numerous well-publicized killings of black citizens by police officers and the latest wave of black activism.

Kirkus Reviews