Septima Clark has been a popular figure in United States historiography. Clark shared her life story and experiences in two biographies and has attracted scholarly attention as a pioneer of citizenship schools which trained thousands of African Americans to register and vote and as an influential woman in a movement otherwise dominated by men. Mellen Charron's biography surpasses previous literature in terms of its breadth and historical contribution. It is assiduously researched, drawing on extensive archival research and oral histories with key figures from Clark's life. The biographical format and Charron's lyrical writing style make this a compelling read that could appeal outside the academy. Charron contextualizes Clark's life in a “long civil rights movement” that challenges the boundaries of a short civil rights movement beginning with the 1954 Brown v. Board decision and culminating in the Voting Rights Act. She argues that both teacher activists and white segregationists gained valuable experience in education court cases prior to 1954 that formed their responses to debates on segregation. By the same count, black women activists sustained community movements in the face of “shrinking resources, both from civil rights supporters and the state,” from the mid-1960s (8). Meanwhile, Charron uncovers a legacy of a black “women's liberation” movement of sorts, whereby women (often teachers) “enabled grassroots women to connect their personal problems to political action in a distinct milieu” (7). It develops a growing body of literature, including Christina Greene's work on low-income women in Durham, documenting women's work building networks that allowed for a ground swell of activism for large-scale protests in the 1960s. At times, the biography is intensely personal, reflecting on Clark's difficult experiences of marriage and motherhood and their impact on her work. At other times, it is a sweeping account of the social, political and cultural changes that Clark lived through.

While Charron has encompassed an impressive wealth of research on the United States South, at times she includes extensive detail that is tangential to her story of Clark and her experiences as an African American teacher of the “long civil rights movement.” For instance, chapter 2 includes an array of facts on state policy, various charitable programmes to improve teaching standards, and individual women's experiences of the school system. The chapter concludes by stating that Clark's experiences “conditioned” her “later approach to political activism” (80). This argument would have been more powerful if Charron had written a more concise account of Clark's experience on Johns Island in the late 1910s and included brief detail of broader changes where relevant. In other places, the meta-narrative is more effective; for instance in chapter 3 she re-creates meetings on educational reform that she knew Clark attended.

Charron makes several observations about Clark's personal and professional lives which challenge some common assumptions about her life and women in the civil rights movement. Clark has been lauded for her maternal role nurturing younger activists. However, Charron draws attention to Clark's ambiguous role as a wife and mother. The conflict Clark felt over her family and activist commitments, arguing that “the personal fulfilment Clark gained from her movement work was always balanced by the personal price that she paid for it” (242). She was also prepared to challenge her male colleagues, not just the charismatic ministerial leadership within the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, but Myles Horton and Highlander Folk School as well (295–301). Had Clark organized the biography around these interesting and original insights, it might have led to a more selective use of historical detail.

Nevertheless, as a document of Clark's life full of perceptive insights about Clark and female civil rights activists, as a reference on the southern movement for educational equality and the citizenship school project, and as a lyrical and moving account of an influential activist, this biography is unrivalled.