Gladys L. Mitchell-Walthour is Dan T. Blue Endowed Chair of Political Science at North Carolina Central University. She is the author of The Politics of Blackness: Racial Identity and Political Behavior in Contemporary Brazil (2018). Mitchell-Walthour is a national co-coordinator of the U.S. Network for Democracy in Brazil and former president of the Brazil Studies Association.
The Politics of Survival offers a seamless combination of strong theory, sound methodology, and rich empirical evidence. Mitchell-Walthour anchors her analysis in Black feminist theory thereby centering Black women as the main subjects and using an intersectional approach to highlight the complex reality of poor Black women's lives. -- Ollie A. Johnson III, coeditor of <i>Comparative Racial Politics in Latin America</i> The Politics of Survival treasures the social vision and economic ethics of poor Black women in Brazil and the United States. Mitchell-Walthour's impeccable research champions the political opinions of poor Black Women about social welfare policies and shows how their leadership is the best path for meeting material needs and activating and sustaining participatory democracy. Mitchell-Walthour surfaces how the global face of misogynoir and shaming poor women has been weaponized to disempower, marginalize, steal wages and family futures, and constrain political parties and policy options over generations. This is precisely how gender politics and race and ethnic politics transform comparative politics and how our research shapes a democratic Black Woman led future. -- Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, author of <i>Waste of a White Skin: The Carnegie Corporation and the Racial Logic of White Vulnerability</i>