The Trouble Between Us: An Uneasy History of White and Black Women in the Feminist Movement

One of the leading voices of the 1960s and '70s civil rights and feminist movements, Breines (Young, White, and Miserable: Growing up Female in the Fifties) attempts to confront, understand and better relations between white and black women in this sincere and detailed historical analysis. Though she may alienate readers early on with a defensive take on the role of Caucasian women in the women's rights movement (""One of the central struggles of young white socialist feminists was to create a racially inclusive movement. ... but black women rejected and attacked the feminist movement as racist.""), Breines tries to correct for misunderstandings on both sides of the racial divide, with the goal of determining why a true multicultural feminist movement never developed in the United States. There are valuable lessons to be learned from Breines, especially in her ability to mine this ""marginal sector of the American political scene"" for relevant commentary on American race relations throughout history, but her methodical approach is aimed more at scholars than casual history or feminism buffs.