CIVIL RIGHTS SOLDIERS. Via LGM, Erik Loomis's remembrance of Diane Nash's service to the civil rights movement is an important historical corrective. In retrospect, these things are always made out to be Great Man conflicts. Either Martin Luther King Jr. did it all on his own, or it was his productive tension with Malcolm X, or Lyndon Johnson. That it was, in fact, countless footsoldiers putting themselves in harm's way every day and giving King's rhetoric force and numbers is rarely mentioned. Similarly unexamined is the amount of sexism in the civil rights movement and how it's remembered. In John Lewis's memoir, Walking With The Wind, Nash is often referenced, but mainly for how sexy she was. Which may have well been true, but shouldn't quite be the point.
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Ezra Klein