Elizabeth Gillespie McRae - Mothers of Massive Resistance

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: McRae, Elizabeth Gillespie, author.

Title: Mothers of massive resistance : white women and the politics of white supremacy / Elizabeth Gillespie McRae.

Other titles: White women and the politics of white supremacy

Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017016910 (print) | LCCN 2017039850 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190271725 (Updf) | ISBN 9780190271732 (Epub) | ISBN 9780190271718 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: White supremacy movementsUnited States

History20th century. | Women, WhitePolitical activityUnited StatesHistory. | Women, WhiteUnited StatesAttitudesHistory20th century. | Women, WhiteUnited StatesSocial life and customsHistory20th century. | SegregationUnited StatesHistory20th century. | Racial discriminationUnited StatesHistory20th century. | RacismUnited StatesHistory20th century. | United States Race relationsHistory20th century.

Classification: LCC E184.A1 (ebook) | LCC E184.A1 M354 2017 (print) | DDC 320.56/909730904dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017016910

In memory of Sam Gillespie

FOR YEARS, advisors, colleagues, and friends warned me about the unwieldy nature of this project. I should have listened. Despite my dismissal of their advice, they remained in my corner. I am indebted to their faith and endurance.

I will never measure up to the two scholars who have been most influential to meJames Cobb and Bryant Simon. While his sense of our meeting might be different, Jim Cobb came to Athens just in time for me. His research suggestions, hard-driving comments, Uncle Jim emails, and Lyra Cobbs lessons in grammar have shaped every page of this work. He has remained a steady mentor and friend to me and my family for which I am so thankful. Bryant Simon tried to make me a better writer and drilled me with questions in his office, on runs, and at celebrations. Then he welcomed me into his life and that of his familymy dear friend Ann-Marie, Benjamin, Eli, Bob, and Susan. There are all kinds of families. The Simon-Reardons are our family of the heart.

A scholarly community and one of friends have shaped this project from the beginning. Years ago an email from Jacquelyn Dowd Hall sent me down this path, and she has been supportive ever since. Archivists and librarians at the North Carolina Department of Archives and History, the Southern History Collection, the North Carolina Collection, Charles C. Capps Archives at Delta State University, the South Caroliniana Society, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Albert and Shirley Small Library at the University of Virginia, the McClain Library at University of Southern Mississippi, the Harrison County Historical Society, Hargrett Library at the University of Georgia, and Rockbridge County Library helped me collect materials and conduct my research. Donna Huffer generously shared her research on the Clarks of Rockbridge County with me, and Anne House sent me copies of Florence Sillers Ogdens columns, My Dear Boys.

Trying to nail this story down has meant the best kinds of collaboration and conversation. Susan Ferber has supported this project for years, and her careful reading of the manuscript made it all the better. She also made sure I had careful, insightful readers. At the University of Georgia, I benefited from working with Emory Thomas, Bob Pratt, Chana Kai Lee, Kathleen Clark, Josh Cole, John Inscoe, Ann Short Chirhart, Glenda Bridges, and Mark Huddle. Along the way Karen Anderson, Dan Carter, Laura Edwards, Jane Dailey, Anna Krome Lukens, Marjorie Spruill, Ann Ziker, Andy Lewis, Blain Roberts, Doug Smith, Jim Noles, Nancy MacLean, Kevin Kruse, Joe Crespino, Robin Morris, Laura Edwards, David Cecelski, Glenda Gilmore, Clive Webb, George Lewis, Michelle Nickerson, and Timothy Tyson have provided helpful commentary. When he called to tell me about his wedding, Steve Kantrowitz generously ended up helping me reframe the story instead. Rick and Mary Beth Holcomb, Kat Charron, Adriane Lentz-Smith, and Christian Lentz have brought good conversation, good friendship, good bourbon, and good fun to Cullowhee, and I would not know what to do without them. Along the way Richard and Hani Brooks, Paul and Sally Williams, Etta Seale Powell, and Steve and Peggy Riethmiller provided good company, a roof over my head, and lovely companionship. Carol, Brent, and Scott McRae have remained encouraging throughout.

For the past seventeen years, I have lived and worked in the mountains of North Carolina. The history department at Western Carolina University hired me days after I defended my dissertation proposal and have been supportive ever since. Graduate and undergraduate studentsBeverly Ellis, Whit Altizer, Joe Hurley, Kevin Campbell, James Owen, Sarah Beth Lee, Lynn Parmer, Jennifer Scism Ash, Tony Varvoutis, Donna Clausen, Kayla Paynehave helped track down sources near and far. In my first trip through Cullowhee, an older generation of historians piqued my interestCliff Lovin, John Bell, Max Williams, and Gerry Schwartz. But the classrooms of Janice Witt and Mary Adams at Richlands High School and those of Richard Zuber, Gayle McCaffery, and James Barefield at Wake Forest University convinced me even earlier that asking questions mattered. More recently, Jim Lewis, Curtis Wood, Robert Ferguson, Tanisha Jenkins, Gael Graham, Annette Debo, Mae Claxton, Chris Cooper, Benjamin Francis-Fallon, Kathy Orr, and Mary Ella Engel talked through ideas, and encouraged me. Andy Denson, Robin Payne, and Jessie Swigger made excellent suggestions as part of our writing group. Richard Starnes and I first met in Cullowhee, and he has been my dear friend ever since. Vicki Szabo has been a constant for me in McKee. Jessie Swigger brought sweetness, support, and dear friendship to Cullowhee and to us. I owe my dear friend Alex Macaulay for running thousands of miles with me, for regaling me with Walhalla stories, and in between for talking me through many of these passages.

The mountains have brought me all kinds of additional wise counsel historians Sarah Judson, Dan Carter, and Matt Lassiter. Matt served as a reader, and I benefited from his copious comments and our conversations then and now. If I managed to make this book better, he deserves much credit. My larger community, Eleanor, Eliza, Lee, Kate, and Julia Macaulay, Betty Farmer, Jim Manning, Dawn Gilchrist, and former Whee residents Kathy and Bobby Woollum have made the world a better place to be. The public school community in Jackson County has also been a source of inspiration. The high school students in the Appalachian Oral History project have reminded me how important the stories of everyday people are, and I am indebted to Pam Shuler and Jake Buchanan at Smoky Mountain, Billie Clemens at Swain High School and Denise Davis at Franklin High for passing on to their students that history matters. My best teachers in the mountains, no doubt, have been Betty Sue and Susan Moore. They taught me much about where we live, how to raise children, and what matters in this world. I am honored to know and love them, and I could not have done this without them.