Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope

A New York Times Notable BookA landmark reinterpretation of the civil rights movement that challenges reductive heroic narratives of the 1950s and 1960s and invigorates new debates and possibilities for the future of the struggle for liberation. We are all familiar with the romantic vision of the civil rights movement: Heroic African Americans and their allies courageously triumphed over racial oppression, forging a new consensus in American life and law. What are the effects of this celebratory storytelling? What happens when a living revolt against injustice becomes an embalmed museum piece?In this innovative work, Brandon Terry rejects the authority of the romantic narrative—the “arc of justice” story found in popular histories, the speeches of Barack Obama, and the writings of John Rawls—while also pushing back against the rival ironic mode of Afropessimism. Though sympathetic to the critiques of Afropessimists, Terry ultimately finds their thought self-undermining. Instead of romance or irony, he argues, the civil rights movement is best understood through the lens of tragedy. By challenging the attachment to triumphant pasts, Terry demonstrates that tragedy exemplifies what the civil rights movement has been and can still be. Provocative and original, Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope offers optimism without naïveté, to train our judgment and resilience in the face of reasonable despair.