Until There Is Justice – The Life of Anna Arnold Hedgeman

Until There Is Justice tells the complex, moving story of the remarkable civil rights figure Anna Arnold Hedgeman, who played a key role in more than half a century of social justice initiatives. Hedgeman ought to be a household name like her colleagues, including A. Philip Randolph, Betty Friedan, and Martin Luther King Jr., but until now she has received only a fraction of the attention she deserves. Through a commitment to faith-based activism, civil rights, and feminism, Anna Arnold Hedgeman participated in and led some of the 20th century’s most important developments, including advances in education, public health, politics, and workplace justice. She worked as a teacher, lobbyist, politician, social worker, and activist, often behind the scenes but always crafting as well as carrying out policy. She repeatedly found herself a woman among men, a black American among whites, and a secular Christian among clergy, but she found ways to maintain all of those conflicting identities and work with others to forge a common humanity. Hedgeman cared deeply for the dignity and welfare of all people, acting most passionately on behalf of the dispossessed.

She helped black and Puerto Rican Americans achieve critical civil service employment in New York City during the Great Depression, directed national efforts for permanent fair labor legislation after World War II, coordinated the first organized attempt by black Americans to influence a presidential election, orchestrated white religious Americans’ participation in the 1963 March on Washington, and introduced a broad and inclusive agenda as a founder of the National Organization for Women. Here finally is the story of this dignified woman and scrappy freedom fighter, devout Christian and demanding feminist, accomplished political operative and savvy grassroots organizer, proud American and insistent African American voice.

• Anna Arnold Hedgeman’s life upends conventional thinking on many aspects of the civil rights and feminist movements
• Clarifies the connections among race, gender, and religion throughout the civil rights movement
• Provides a vast array of new information on a key but understudied civil rights leader
• Encourages interracial, interfaith dialogue and collaboration
• Provides critical historical context for the racial challenges the nation faces today
• Hedgeman was a founding member of the National Organization Women and critical in organizing the 1963 March on Washington

Reviews

“This powerful and poignant book lays bare the extraordinary courage and wisdom of a grand freedom fighter usually overlooked— Anna Arnold Hedgeman. Don’t miss it!”
  –Cornel West

“Anna Arnold Hedgman has long been excluded from positive credit in important civil rights conversations, though she was definitely critical to The Dream. In Jennifer Scanlon’s important book, Hedgeman is finally receiving her due.”
 –Nikki Giovanni

“By showing how Hedgeman mediated between white religious leaders and black civil rights activists, interracialism and black power, and issues of race and gender, Scanlon reshapes our understanding of the civil rights movement’s leadership and legacies. Until There Is Justice is a moving, insightful, and truly necessary book, one that illuminates inexplicably ignored aspects of our common history.”
  –Jacquelyn Dowd Hall

Patricia Hill Collins, “The Organizer,” review in New York Times Book Review, February 28, 2016

Excerpts, Publications, and Popular Media

“Where Were the Women in the March on Washington?” The New Republic, March 16, 2016

“Until There Is Justice: Anna Arnold Hedgeman Returns to NYC,” Parts I and II, The Gotham Center for New York City History, March 1, 3, 2016.

“My Book, The Movie,” Campaign for the American Reader, March 6, 2016

“The Page 99 Test, Until There Is Justice,” Campaign for the American Reader, February 29, 2016

Bowdoin News: Dean Scanlon’s Latest Book Examines ‘Unsung’ Female Civil Rights Hero

Radio

Interview on Robin Morgan on Women’s Media Center Live, WMC Radio (March 2016)
http://www.wmclive.com/

Interview with Judge Laura D. Blackburne,The Crisis Today Radio Program (NAACP),  WTHE (March 2016)