Sisters in the Struggle : African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement

by Collier-Thomas, Bettye; Franklin, V. P.

• ISBN13: 9780814716038
• ISBN10: 0814716032
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-08-01
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services

Summary

Women were at the forefront of the civil rights struggle, but their indvidiual stories were rarely heard. Only recently have historians begun to recognize the central role women played in the battle for racial equality.InSisters in the Struggle, we hear about the unsung heroes of the civil rights movements such as Ella Baker, who helped found the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper who took on segregation in the Democratic party (and won), and Septima Clark, who created a network of "Citizenship Schools" to teach poor Black men and women to read and write and help them to register to vote. We learn of Black women's activism in the Black Panther Party where they fought the police, as well as the entrenched male leadership, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, where the behind-the-scenes work of women kept the organization afloat when it was under siege. It also includes first-person testimonials from the women who made headlines with their courageous resistance to segregation--Rosa Parks, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, and Dorothy Height.This collection represents the coming of age of African-American women's history and presents new stories that point the way to future study.Contributors: Bettye Collier-Thomas, Vicki Crawford, Cynthia Griggs Fleming, V. P. Franklin, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Duchess Harris, Sharon Harley, Dorothy I. Height, Chana Kai Lee, Tracye Matthews, Genna Rae McNeil, Rosa Parks, Barbara Ransby, Jacqueline A. Rouse, Elaine Moore Smith, and Linda Faye Williams.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction: In the Whip of the Whirlwind	1	(8)
PART I: Laying the Groundwork: African American Women and Civil Rights Before 1950	9	(50)
``Closed Doors'': Mary McLeod Bethune on Civil Rights	11	(10)
Introduction
Elaine M. Smith
Mary McLeod Bethune
For the Race in General and Black Women in Particular: The Civil Rights Activities of African American Women's Organizations, 1915--50	21	(21)
V. P. Franklin
Bettye Collier-Thomas
Behind-the-Scenes View of a Behind-the-Scenes Organizer: The Roots of Ella Baker's Political Passions	42	(17)
Barbara Ransby
PART II: Personal Narratives	59	(34)
``Tired of Giving In'': The Launching of the Montgomery Bus Boycott	61	(14)
Rosa Parks
``Heirs to a Legacy of Struggle'': Charlayne Hunter Integrates the University of Georgia	75	(8)
Charlayne Hunter Gault
``We Wanted the Voice of a Woman to Be Heard'': Black Women and the 1963 March on Washington	83	(10)
Dorothy I. Height
PART III: Women, Leadership, and Civil Rights	93	(78)
``We Seek to Know . . . in Order to Speak the Truth'': Nurturing the Seeds of Discontent---Septima P. Clark and Participatory Leadership	95	(26)
Jacqueline A. Rouse
African American Women in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party	121	(18)
Vicki Crawford
Anger, Memory, and Personal Power: Fannie Lou Hamer and Civil Rights Leadership	139	(32)
Chana Kai Lee
PART IV: From Civil Rights to Black Power: African American Women and Nationalism	171	(86)
``Chronicle of a Death Foretold'': Gloria Richardson, the Cambridge Movement, and the Radical Black Activist Tradition	174	(23)
Sharon Harley
Black Women and Black Power: The Case of Ruby Doris Smith Robinson and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee	197	(17)
Cynthia Griggs Fleming
``Ironies of the Saint'': Malcolm X, Black Women, and the Price of Protection	214	(16)
Farah Jasmine Griffin
``No One Ever Asks What a Man's Role in the Revolution Is'': Gender Politics and Leadership in the Black Panther Party, 1966--71	230	(27)
Tracye A. Matthews
PART V: Law, Feminism, and Politics	257	(76)
``Joanne Is You and Joanne Is Me'': A Consideration of African American Women and the ``Free Joan Little'' Movement, 1974--75	259	(21)
Genna Rae McNeil
From the Kennedy Commission to the Combahee Collective: Black Feminist Organizing, 1960--80	280	(26)
Duchess Harris
The Civil Rights---Black Power Legacy: Black Women Elected Officials at the Local, State, and National Levels	306	(27)
Linda Faye Williams
Selected Bibliography	333	(10)
Permissions	343	(2)
Contributors	345	(4)
Index	349