A Woman's Perspective, Jerry Chen
Introduction:
Taking a glance through any list of "key figures" or "famous" activists of the civil rights movement pulls up the usual suspects that anyone could think of off the top of their heads. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and more will appear on most if not all lists you go to. But as one traverses these lists a pattern emerges that might not be apparent at first, but is extremely obvious once you realize it. These lists of important activists are sometimes exclusively, but rather predominantly male. Look to these two lists here and here for examples of this discrepancy. Of course, there is Rosa Parks, and some articles may include Ella Baker, but the vast majority of these figures tend to be male. Why is there such a large difference in the number of important male versus female activists?
Perhaps it was that women tended not to be leaders back in the civil rights era. After all, culture and society imposed rigid gender roles onto women back during this time. However, looking into scholarly articles on women activists reveals that women were leaders in this era. As stated by Brandon R. Byrd in the book, New Perspectives on the Black Intellectual Tradition,
"By the early 1930s [Addie] Hunton was an imposing figure in black America. Her leadership positions included service as president of the International Council of Women of the Darker Races (ICWDR), the Empire State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, and the Circle for Peace and Foreign Relations. She was also a principal organizer of the Fourth Pan- African Congress in 1927 and held offices in the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) and the NAACP. (Byrd 61)
The reality is that while equality was a major focus of the civil rights movement, sexism was still prevalent within black communities in addition to the rest of the US society. Black women had to fight an uphill battle on two fronts during the Civil Rights movement. First, on challenging white supremacy and racism that was prevalent in the rest of the nation as Black citizens and humans of equal footing to their lighter-skinned counterparts. Seconds, as black intellectual women, seeking to be recognized for their competency and viewpoints from not only White Americans but also their black male peers. This is most apparent in Keisha N. Blain's article, "We Want to Set the World on Fire", in which Blain describes the newspaper New Negro World:
"Within the constraints of a male-dominated newspaper, black nationalist women could not directly challenge masculinist discourses in print but they certainly challenged black patriarchal authority." (Blain 199)
While this page does not explicitly look to investigate this double-sided issue further, it is still important to explore the contributions that black women made to the civil rights movement. This page looks instead, to act as a starting point for a reteaching of the Civil Rights movement, paying closer attention to the contribution that black women had to the movement. Black women perspectives are important when analyzing the Civil Rights movement as they were in a prime position not only to advocate for equality but also to see where the leaders of the Civil Rights movement fell short in their demands of equality as a people still oppressed by the people protesting their own oppression.
Document 1:
In this document, we can see the inner-workings of an organization laid out through leaders and committee members. It's clear from the document that these women are not afraid of leadership and aren't afraid to take action when they see that it is necessary. The newspaper article ensures that 8 recommendations of action steps that they should take in order to benefit themselves, the nation, and the world. Many of these recommendations are international by nature, showing the international perspective that both Black Americans and Black Women had of the Civil Rights movement and equality. It is also clear that these black women had a great focus on education and the spread of Black culture and Black history throughout the world, while also learning about the conditions that black women lived in around the world to determine which areas needed the most support and activism. From all of this, it is clear that black women had a great impact on the people not only of the US but the world.
Document 2:
In this image, we see a line of women marching in front of the White House in order to protest a lynching that occurred in Georgia. From the signs, it can be extrapolated that this protest march was organized by a group known as the District of Columbia Delegation. It's clear from the context of the image and its contents that the average black women were, in spite of their status as a minority in both race and gender, not afraid to make their voices heard and take part in public and active protests. The Civil Rights movement was a one made up of not just the leaders, but the everyday citizen, willing to congregate and collaborate to fix and protest issues that they agreed on, and from this image, we know that this was true not only for black men but all black people during the era. Black women, in addition to taking up the fight for equality internationally, also fought for the rights of their fellow men and women locally, ensuring that they had a presence on all fronts of the fight.
