‘The Rape of Recy Taylor’ explores the little-known terror campaign against black women

In her speech at the 2018 Golden Globes Award Ceremony, Oprah Winfrey referenced Recy Taylor.  In this review, Soraya Nadia McDonald relates Taylor’s story and that of other women, drawn from the book At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance — a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power by historian Danielle McGuire.  “The Rape of Recy Taylor brings attention to a little-discussed but common reality for black women in the Jim Crow South: racially motivated rape by white men.”  McDonald quotes McGuire: “These [white men] are not just bad apples. . . . This is part of a systemic approach to dehumanizing black women and girls.”  McDonald also gives several reasons why this history has been under-reported compared to lynchings.  WARNING.  The article describes brutal acts of violence.