Will I love Civil Rights Queen?

I was impressed by the unique narrative of this book that delivers exhaustive research in short chapters in a way that offers voluminous information in bite-size pieces that can be sampled over time.

I liked that the book provided a sense of the person behind the robes of this first Black woman federal judge without diminishing her accomplishments.

I learned much about Motley’s origins as a lawyer fighting in the trenches of racism that revealed her bravery and determination, narrated by an author who understands the momentum of the civil rights movement.

Constance Baker Motley’s role within the Civil Rights Movement had not received the recognition it deserved until Tomiko Brown-Nagin’s Civil Rights Queen. Brown-Nagin reconstructs Motley’s life and pushes readers to consider the activist and legal career of the first Black woman appointed as a federal judge. As a writer who is especially interested in studying Black working-class women, I appreciate the author’s close attention to how Motley’s life from a working-class background to her position as a judge of the Southern District of New York.