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• 1 2020-04-01T09:17:31+00:00 A Woman's Perspective, Jerry Chen 4 plain 2020-04-20T03:31:16+00:00

  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. For instance, Addie Hunton was stated by Brandon R. Byrd in his book New Perspectives on the Black Intellectual Tradition, to have dvocated for racial equality and Black progress across nations and throughout the world. She rallied support, along with many other Black women leaders, against the occupation of Haiti by the American government. As both a woman of the Civil Rights era and a leader, Addie Hunton was an important member of the Civil Rights movement. As quoted by Byrd,

  "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)

  
  Her influence in such a wide array of advocacy groups reveals how impactful she was and her relative obscurity in comparison to her fellow male leaders shows the bias that history and people had towards male leaders.
  
  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)

  
  This page seeks to investigate how feminism and Black women were able to impact the Civil Rights movement and 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. As a result, this issue of sexism within the movement, while not the main focus of the page, is still important to be aware of when analysing their actions and understanding their importance within the movement. Black, female perspectives are important when analyzing the Civil Rights movement as this particular group stood 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:

  
  This document outlines the activities that occurred in a meeting in August 1923 of the International Council of Women of the Darker Races. This document is testament to the active roles that women took in terms of progressing the Civil Rights movement. It is apparent 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.
  
  Looking at the specific details of their action steps, an international focus appears to be at the forefront of the minds of these women. They are looking to educate the oppressed children and women of Haiti and Africa, while gathering information about the living conditions of their fellow Black women in any country that they live in. Their focus on women specifically when looking at Black populations may be due to their understanding of the oppression that they face on both sides of the battle for racial equality. Where white nations and leaders oppress these women for the skin color, the male members of the Civil Rights Movement also look down upon them because of their gender. This document displays a profound knowledge of both the global scale of the fight for equality as well as their struggles in terms of gender roles and bias.
   

  Document 2:

  
  In this image, we see a line of women from the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) marching in front of the White House in order to protest a lynching that occurred in Georgia. The NACW was founded in response to the lynching of Black men falsely accused of raping white women and the actual rape of Black women by white men. The NACW understood that stereotypes against Black women and the image of the Black rapist served to justify sexual violence against Black women and the lynching of Black men. As a result, the NACW made it their purpose and goal to dispel these stereotypes and dismantling the myth of the Black Rapist from common culture. They did this by setting high moral standards for themselves and actively spreading truthful and accurate education and information about Black culture and Black women in order to counter false stereotypes and beliefs about these groups. 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.

  Conclusion:

  From the image and document, it is obvious that the Civil Rights movement was not as male-dominated as initial education today may lead its students to believe. The Civil Rights movement was made up of equal parts of Black men and women, fighting together for the same rights, even if their methods were different. It's important when reteaching the Civil Rights movement that we take a look through the viewpoint of Black women, as a group oppressed by both sides of the Civil Rights movement, their vision of equality would be important for any discussion of human rights for any minority group. These movements are often carry tensions between it and other movements or minority groups and it's important to recognize these tensions as they display weaknesses in their idea of equality and freedom, weaknesses that cannot be ignored when reteaching and reframing the Civil Rights movement in a way that is representative of the movement as a whole.The experience of Black women during the Civil RIghts era is important to analyze not only for the fight for racial equality, but every fight for equality in history to come.

   

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