The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, From the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement

Published in 2024, The Small and the Mighty is a history of the United States by Sharon McMahon, familiarly known as “America’s Government Teacher.” Known for her ability to make history enjoyable and engaging, McMahon explores how everyday Americans can change the course of history. From the founding of the United States through the civil rights movement, McMahon’s “unsung heroes” often had lasting impacts on their community, country, and world, yet they are left out of most historical accounts. The book explores the contributions of these ordinary Americans, along with the nuance and perspective that are necessary when studying history and the importance of hope, perseverance, and tenacity in achieving great things. 

This guide refers to the 2024 Penguin Random House Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide refer to slavery, racism, rape, death, death of a child and an infant, suicidal ideation, and the detainment of Japanese Americans.

Summary

Sharon McMahon begins The Small and the Mighty by describing Gouverneur Morris, a founding father and close friend of Alexander Hamilton. Although Morris was an important man who made great contributions to American history, he has been all but forgotten in comparison to Hamilton, and McMahon wonders how many other unsung American heroes have also been forgotten.

The first part tells the story of Clara Brown, an enslaved woman who was separated from her husband and children as a young woman. Clara gained her freedom at age 56 and moved to Colorado, where she became known as the “Angel of the Rockies,” helping anyone in her community who was in need and helping others settle in the state. Over the years, though, Clara never forgot her lost daughter, and the two were finally reunited a few years before Clara’s death.

The second of McMahon’s forgotten heroes is Virginia Randolph, a schoolteacher in Henrico County, Virginia, at the start of the 20th century. Virginia worked tirelessly to earn her community’s trust and develop an education system for the first generation of free African American children. As the lead teacher for her county, she developed a plan so successful that it was recreated across the South in rural Black school districts. Virginia traveled far and wide, training teachers and sharing her methodology, ensuring that tens of thousands of lives were forever changed.

From Virginia, McMahon moves on to Katharine Lee Bates, the poet responsible for writing “America the Beautiful.” Katharine was a literature professor and lived a quiet life with her life partner, Katharine Coman. She never sought notoriety, yet her words captured the nation’s imagination as they perfectly described the American ideals of freedom, justice, and goodness.

Next, McMahon describes the many women who participated in the suffrage movement and secured women the right to vote. Women like Inez Milholland were the face of the movement, making headlines and leading marches, but many others were working behind the scenes. Women such as Rebecca Brown Mitchell, who moved to Idaho in the late 1800s and began working in state politics, laid the groundwork for the national suffrage movement that would come. World War I and the changing world gave women new opportunities to prove that they were just as brave and tenacious as men. Players like Maria de Lopez, who drove an ambulance across France, and the Hello Girls, who risked their lives to operate European switchboards, showed that women had as much right to have a say in government as American men did.

The next section introduces unsung heroes responsible for developing schools for rural African American children across the South. Northern philanthropists like Anna Thomas Jeanes and Julius Rosenwald gave the equivalent of millions of present-day dollars to build a network of schools across the South that educated hundreds of thousands of African American children. Black educators like Booker T. Washington and William Jaime Edwards worked tirelessly to help communities raise money, hire teachers, and distribute resources. None of these educators or philanthropists were advocating for equality or school desegregation, and some even continued to believe in segregation as “the nature of society” (160). From today’s point of view, this is “ludicrous,” but these people were working within the context of a racist system and “doing what they thought was best at the time” (160). Their work might have been imperfect, but they changed hundreds of thousands of lives and the course of history.

Next, McMahon describes the detainment of Japanese Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Future senator Daniel Inouye was a teenager in Hawaii when the bombs hit, and he immediately rushed into danger to save others. He later enlisted in the Army. He lost his arm fighting but came home as a hero. Future congressman and secretary of commerce Norman Mineta was 10 years old when he was evacuated with his family to a concentration camp, where they would stay for years. He went on to serve in the military, complete 10 terms in Congress, and serve in the cabinets of presidents from both political parties.

Finally, McMahon tells the stories of several forgotten individuals who ushered in the civil rights movement. Rosa Parks is generally credited with starting the civil rights movement when she refused to give up her seat for a white passenger on December 1, 1955. However, there was a great deal of momentum behind her by this point, both from other Black women across the South and from the years Rosa had spent preparing for her moment. One such forgotten hero is Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old African American girl who refused to give up her seat nine months before Rosa’s fateful day on the bus. Claudette was arrested, and her case became one of several that comprised a federal lawsuit challenging the segregation of Montgomery’s public buses. Another woman behind the start of the civil rights movement was Septima Clark, a teacher who established a series of classes for adult African Americans to gain literacy skills. Clark taught leadership workshops at Highlander Folk School, where Rosa was one of her students.

These stories show that all Americans have important contributions to make, each related to their own “unique skills, talents, and abilities” (280). McMahon argues that there will be a moment when each of us is called to act and that we must have the bravery to stand up in that moment. We must remember that we, “the small and the mighty,” are “the ones we’ve been waiting for” (281).