Born in 1901, Louise Thompson Patterson was a leading and
transformative figure in radical African American politics.
Throughout most of the twentieth century she embodied a dedicated
resistance to racial, economic, and gender exploitation. In this, the
first biography of Patterson, Keith Gilyard tells her compelling
story, from her childhood on the West Coast, where she suffered
isolation and persecution, to her participation in the Harlem
Renaissance and beyond. In the 1930s and 1940s she became central,
along with Paul Robeson, to the labor movement, and later, in the
1950s, she steered proto-black-feminist activities. Patterson was
also crucial to the efforts in the 1970s to free political prisoners,
most notably Angela Davis. In the 1980s and 1990s she continued to
work as a progressive activist and public intellectual. To read her
story is to witness the courage, sacrifice, vision, and discipline of
someone who spent decades working to achieve justice and liberation
for all.
