In the 1950s, the exclusion of women and of black and Latino men from higher-paying jobs was so universal as to seem normal to most Americans. Today, diversity in the workforce is a point of pride. How did such a transformation come about?

In this bold and groundbreaking work, Nancy MacLean shows how civil rights activists and feminists concluded that freedom alone would not suffice. Tracing the struggle to open the American workplace to all, MacLean chronicles the cultural and political advances that have irrevocably changed our nation over the past fifty years.

Freedom Is Not Enough reveals the fundamental role jobs play in the struggle for equality and demonstrates the life-altering impact of the Civil Rights Act and the movement for economic advancement that it fostered.