Wake Up Little Susie

Twenty-five years after Roe v. Wade, abortion rights are contested as never before and current debates over welfare, workfare, and public assistance to women with children demonstrate the way in which race and class continue to affect women's reproductive freedom. A pioneering work, Wake Up Little Susie reveals how current attitudes toward these issues developed by examining their roots in the postwar era and discerning how differently they affected black and white women. A powerful and shocking book, Susie is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the complex and disturbing politics surrounding issues of race, class, and reproductive rights. This new edition includes a foreword by the esteemed social historian Elaine Tyler May, and an afterword by the author that traces the issues examined in Susie in the context of the current debates.

Rickie Solinger is also the author of The Abortionist: A Woman Against the Law and editor of Abortion Wars: A Half Century of Struggle, 1950-2000. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.