Clenched Fists, Burning Crosses

Inspired by the horrors of the Greensboro Massacre, Cris South penned Clenched Fists, Burning Crosses 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.

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.

Cris South is a writer, printmaker, and former member of the Feminary collective based in Durham, North Carolina. Jaime Harker is professor of English and the director of the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies at the University of Mississippi.