McGuire charts crucial history in this text and helped me appreciate the resilience and power of so many Black women who pushed back against brutal violence and sexual assault that laid foundations for much of the critical organizing in the civil rights movement.

A must read if you are at all interested in US History of the 20th century -- the book focuses on African American women, their victimization and struggle to be respected in this country. A book that will make you angry (I hope). ( )

Outstanding journalism. Tough to take, even though so much is familiar. ( )

Imagine being a woman. A woman with 23 children. Now imagine that 20 of those children are the result of being raped. Imagine that your daughter is so fearful of being attacked, too, that she routinely carries a pistol with her when she works outside. Imagine further that her daughter, your granddaughter, is arrested, beaten bloody and naked by law enforcement for peaceably protesting that culture of violence. Such has been the life of the Southern black women, and this book does a remarkable job of vividly documenting what is really just the tip of the iceberg, just the most notorious, the most historical cases. Having read a great deal about the Civil War and the Southern slave culture, I have also found myself following up by reading on life in the South after the war ended. This is a very important book in detailing a critical part of that history and deserves our attention. Highly recommended. ( )

At the Dark End of the Street is an extraordinary text that tells the little known stories of black women's activism and illuminates the centrality of sexual violence to the justification and maintenance of white supremacy. A must read. ( )