Clenched Fists Burning Crosses

<p>Inspired by the horrors of the Greensboro Massacre Cris South penned <i>Clenched Fists Burning Crosses</i> as part of the noted Feminary collective. The book a thinly fictionalized representation of her own life and activism centers on Jessie a working-class printer whose antiracist and anti-Klan activism come to the attention of Klan members with harrowing results. Jessie’s story mirrors that of the author’s and offers a vision of what multiple intersectional coalitions of oppressed people look like: lesbian feminists Black activists and perhaps most memorably a woman who confronts her abuser swinging an axe Lizzie Borden style to reclaim her agency.<br/><br/>Although Jessie’s suffering—and the suffering of the women around her—is stark in its realism the book ends with a celebration of both resistance and love. This is the novel’s distinctive contribution: it refuses abjection and claims the healing power of political resistance and coalition.</p>