Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Black Women Leaders In The Civil Rights Movement Era And Beyond
I. INTRODUCTION
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Janet Dewart Bell, AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN LEADERS IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT: A NARRATIVE
INQUIRY, Antioch University—PhD Program in leadership and Change (May, 2015)
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II. THE “INVISIBLE LEADERS” OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT
1. General Role
Generally speaking, black “women were responsible for the actual building”
of the Civil Right Movement as an enterprise, “for doing the everyday [day-to-day]
work” of it. (Bell at 29 (quoting Payne).) Both Bell and historian Charles Payne
observe that “[w]hile men served as spokespersons, work traditionally recognized
as leadership, women led by ‘mobilizing already existing social networks around
the organizing goals, mediating conflicts, conveying information, coordinating
activity, [and] creating and sustaining good relations within the group.’” (Bell at 29
(quoting Payne).) Put another way, black women essentially served as the
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Movement’s chief operating officers: they generated ideas for how to dismantle
legalized segregation in its various forms, and they also got it done, primarily by
attending to the operational and administrative aspects of coordinating the
necessary meetings, protests, and activities.
Now, the context in which black women did this work is an important part of
the story. As I mentioned previously, Jim Crow segregation was a system of laws
and norms that preferenced white people in almost every aspect of life and placed
insidious restrictions on the freedoms of African Americans. (In the South, black
folks were subjugated by law, and elsewhere across America rank discrimination
on the basis of race operated to impose similar limitations.) For example, in many
places, black people were required to pay special poll taxes or take literacy tests
before they were permitted to exercise their right to vote. Black Americans did not
have full and equal access to public transportation—they were relegated to certain
cars on trains and certain seats on buses—and could only take advantage of public
accommodations such restaurants and theaters on the specific terms that white shop
owners dictated, usually that they had to sit at separate tables away from white
patrons. There was segregation in housing, and, of course, black children were not
allowed to attend public schools alongside white children, as a practical matter,
even after the Brown v. the Board decision. In the South, there was also the ever-
present threat of physical harm and even death to black people (men especially)
who stepped out of line as far as white society was concerned.
As part of the Civil Rights Movement, black women addressed themselves
directly to these various social ills, and took on a variety of tasks related to forcing
change with respect to these restrictive laws and practices.
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a. The Montgomery Bus Boycott
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Significantly for present purposes, historians have now concluded that the
success of the Montgomery Bus boycott (which, by the way, was how a local
Baptist preacher named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. got his start as a national civil
rights leader) would not have been possible without the commitment of black
women, who apparently understood from the beginning that the boycott was about
much more than one woman’s right to remain seated. Instead, according to one
women who was quoted in an article posted by the Library of Congress’s Civil
Rights History Project, the boycott was, [QUOTE] “a rebellion”—“a rebellion of
maids, a rebellion of working-class women, who were tired of boarding buses in
Montgomery, the public space, and being assaulted . . . and abused by white bus
drivers.” And, according to that commenter, “that’s [precisely] why that
Movement could hold so long. If it had just been merely a protest about riding the
bus, it might have shattered. But it went to the very heart of black womanhood,
and [as a result] black women played a major role in sustaining [it].” [END
QUOTE]
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jeering assaults and harassment. Then, on one fateful day a couple weeks later
(February 27, 1960), the protesters who had sat down at two of the restaurants were
physically attacked [slide]—white men grabbed them, pulled the from their seats,
and punched, kicked, and spat on them; yet, when the Nashville police arrived, they
arrested only the black students, who were permitted to post bail, but decided to
take a principled stand and thus refused. Ultimately, the black student protesters
spent 33 ½ days in jail.
Now, this story should be somewhat familiar as a general matter, because
the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins are a relatively well-known part of the Civil
Rights Movement. But what is less well known is the fact that women students
were among the most active participants in these and other similar instances of non-
violent civil-disobedience by college students. [slide] In an article entitled
“Always the Backbone, Rarely the Leader,” which was published in 2010, Amanda
Hughett explains that
[i]n 1960 Nashville, change came from an unexpected place. As
their mothers watched in horror, black college women renounced
the protective environment of their campuses to participate in,
and often lead, civil rights demonstrations alongside their black
brothers. Frustrated by slow progress and encouraged to join in
the movement by female friends, young black women could no
longer tolerate sitting on the sidelines while black men led the
way in the fight for first-class citizenship. (Hughett at 1, 2.)
2. Marginalization
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60s, whowere generally considered subordinate and subservient to men. (Bell at
23)
As it relates to black women, the March on Washington was one prime
example of this phenomenon. [slide] Women Marched on Washington in the
thousands on August 23, 1963, but no woman was asked to give a speech as part of
the official program on that day, and none was invited to the White House as part
of the delegation of civil rights leaders that visited with President Kennedy after
the day’s events. And, of course, [slide] once a narrative has formed about the
relative significance of the roles that various people played in important historical
events such as the March on Washington, it is hard to change that perception as
time goes by. Thus, even in modern times, historical reflections the Civil Rights
Movement often omit the unique voices and perspectives of the black women
participants and leaders. (Bell at 3)
3. Individual Profiles
The good news is that recent scholars have begun to focus more intently on
the black women who were leaders in the Civil Rights Movement. So, we now
know much more about their contributions, and, again, part of my goal here today
is to introduce you to some of those women. I have a whole list of folks whom you
should know, and there are many others that I don’t have time to mention here
today. I am going to go through these quickly, and, for ease of discussion, I have
organized these profiles into four categories, based loosely on the scope of the
roles that these women played, as I understand them.
There are four groups.2 First, there were a handful of women in formal,
visible, national positions of authority within established civil rights organizations.
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(Bell at 5 – 6) (explaining that some people were “on the line”—i.e., were involved in direct action—while others
supported civil rights activities in other ways).
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Second, there were women who served as regional leaders, organizing civil rights
initiatives in primarily one geographic locale or with respect to a particular issue.
Third, there are the front-line troops: women who are primarily known for a
particular instance in which they put themselves on the line directly. Fourth, and
finally, are the women who facilitated the collective actions of others, through
financing or legal support.
Okay, so I am now going to run through these profiles quickly with those
four categories in mind.
Ella Baker was an advisor and mentor to many well known civil rights
leaders, including Dr. King and Thurgood Marshall, and is considered
to be the most influential woman in the Movement. Baker believed
strongly in grassroots activism, and stressed the importance of the
participation of young people and women; to that end, she was
responsible for actively recruiting and mentoring the college students
who formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—known
as “<SNICK>”—which was a major player in the organized student-led
sit-ins and other demonstrations throughout the South.
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Conference in Atlanta to encourage African Americans to learn to read
and to harness the power of education. They both held the philosophy
that “literacy means liberation,” and they joined forces to direct SCLC’s
citizenship education program, which brought regional civil rights
leaders to Atlanta for training. Many African Americans at the time
had never learned to read or write, including many of the trainees who
came to the Academy. Clark and Cotton taught the leadership trainees
to read, which, in turn, facilitated their ability to advocate for voting
rights and other causes in their home communities.
Like Baker, Ruby Dee was also a famous American actress, who used
her platform as an entertainer to motivate people to advocate for civil
rights. Dee and her husband, Ossie Davis, were well-known equality
activists, and were active members of several of the most prominent
black civil rights organizations.
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(2) Category Two
There is well-known civil rights advocate Rosa Parks, whose story was
the impetus for the Montgomery bus boycott, as I previously explained.
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Earlier that same year, 15 year-old student Claudette Colvin had also
been arrested on a Montgomery bus for that same kind of defiance, and
Colvin then went on to become one of the five female plaintiffs in the
federal civil rights lawsuit that the led to the Supreme Court striking
down segregation on the city’s buses.
Vivian Malone Jones was one of the first two black students to try to
enroll in the University of Alabama in 1963, after it was legally
desegregated by court order. When she arrived to register, the governor
of Alabama (George Wallace) and a phalanx of state troopers
physically blocked her entry, and she was not allowed to pass until
President John F. Kennedy sent in the Alabama national guard to escort
her into the building. Jones graduated from the University of Alabama
two years later, and was the first black student ever to do so.
Finally, in this direct action category, is Ruby Bridges, who was six
years old in 1960, when her parents responded to a request from the
NAACP in New Orleans for participants in a push for school
integration. Bridges tested into a white elementary school, and was
allowed to transfer in, but had to be escorted into school by federal
marshals amidst angry crowds that formed to try to prevent her entry.
She was in kindergarten. And that aspect of her experience was
captured [slide] in a famous Normal Rockwell painting called “The
Problem We All Live With.” What is less well known is that Ruby was
the only student in her classroom for more than a year—she was taught
alone by a single teacher, because no other teacher would do so, and all
of the white parents had pulled their children out of the school.
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(4) Category Four
I put Coretta Scott King in this category, because she was a classically
trained musician—a vocalist—who was active in the Civil Rights
Movement herself, apart from her husband, and often incorporated
music into her civil rights work. And after Martin Luther King’s
assassination in 1968, she developed her own civil rights agenda, which
included a push for women’s and LGBT rights.
Pauli Murray and Dovey Johnson Roundtree were lawyers who did
extraordinary work to further civil rights causes at a time when few
women had the privilege of practicing law. Murray graduated first in
her class at Howard Law School in the 1940s, and went on to become
the first black student to receive a doctorate of juridical science at Yale
Law School. She wrote a book that examined and critiqued state
segregation laws, which Thurgood Marshall called the bible of the civil
rights movement. She also worked with Ruth Bader Ginsburg to do
pioneering work on gender equality.
Inspired by Pauli Murray and others, Dovey Roundtree, who was also
a Howard Law graduate, represented black litigants in civil rights cases,
beginning in the early 1950s. In one noteworthy effort, she sued to
challenge the right of private bus carriers to impose Jim Crow
segregation on passengers who were traveling across state lines, and in
1955, won a precedential administrative decision before the Interstate
commerce commission that eventually put a permanent end to
segregation in interstate travel.
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Last, but certainly not least, is a woman whose life and
accomplishments have been extremely inspirational for me, personally:
Constance Baker Motley. Motley was a lawyer who got her law
degree from Columbia University in 1946, and she was a protege of
Thurgood Marshall. Motley was the only female attorney at the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund during that organization’s coordinated
legal assault on state-sponsored segregation, and she was the lead
attorney on several significant civil rights cases—for example, she
drafted the original complaint in Brown v. Board, and represented
James Meredith in well-publicized his effort to desegregate the
University of Mississippi. She was also the first African American
woman to argue a case in the Supreme Court—she eventually argued
ten SCt cases, and won nine of them outright (the tenth was eventually
overturned in her favor).
So, there you have it: those are some of the black women leaders of the Civil
Rights Movement, and I hope that that quick overview gives you a sense of their
wide-ranging and significant contributions. Turning now to the more academic
part of this talk, it is also important to understand that what these women did to
instigate and advance civil rights reform is actually an established, albeit generally
unrecognized, form of leadership. Historians have classified these and other black
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women civil rights advocates participants as “servant leaders,” which is a
philosophy of leadership that has actually been around for ages, but the somewhat
oxymoronic term for it was first coined in 1970 (of all years), in a totally different
context, by philosopher Robert K. Greenleaf. [slide]
1. Servant Leadership Defined
The hallmark of servant leadership is the belief that “the main goal of a
leader is to serve” others; that is, instead of the traditional paradigm, in which
people work to serve the leader, the servant leadership model posits that the leader
exists to serve the people. Thus, servant leaders operate consistent with what Bell
calls “strong altruistic ethical overtones” (Bell at 158), and they are generally
focused on the greater good—i.e., they are “more concerned with the collective
interests of the group, organization, and society as opposed to their own self
interests.” (Bell at 20, quoting Avolia) These types of leaders set out to make a
difference rather than to seek fame or fortune (Bell at 160), and the strength of
their leadership is measured by the quality of their impact on the lives of people
and polities”—in other words, its transformative effect (Bell at 24).
Importantly, servant leadership is generally considered to be leadership
without authority. These leaders are not usually anointed or officially appointed,
and they don’t necessarily hold any titles; instead, they emerge due to the quality
of their contributions to people’s lives. (Bell at 19). Put another way, they have
“person power” rather than “position power,” and many undervalue their own
leadership skills precisely because they have a servant mentality (Gyant at 642 –
44); they view themselves as merely doing what needs to be done. Thus, according
to Greenleaf, servant leadership is best conceived of as “leadership . . . bestowed
upon a person who was by nature a servant” (Bell at 158). “It begins with the
natural feeling that one wants to serve, [and] to serve first. Then conscious choice
brings one to aspire to lead.” (Bell at 19)
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2. Core Traits of Black Female ‘Servant Leaders’ In the Civil
Rights Movement
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motivated them to hone their skills and direct their talents toward the common
interests of the black community. And many strongly believed that they were
called to do this work.
Third, and finally, the black women leaders who actively pushed for civil
rights reforms generally exhibited what Bell calls [slide] authenticity, which she
defines as “the condition or quality of being genuine, free from hypocrisy[,]” and
“of being oneself—transparent and confident and self aware” (Bell at 95). The
women leaders she researched knew were well aware that, as black people, they
had been mistreated, but they were also proud Americans, who felt deeply about
their country’s need to, as Dr. King once said, “rise up and live out the true
meaning of its creed” that “all men (and women) are created equal.”
* * *
So those are the core characteristics that, according to Bell, commonly
characterized the manner in which black women pursued civil rights gains and
supported others in achieving those goals. What bears emphasis is the fact that
these common qualities appear to have been a function of black women’s specific
social circumstances at that time. What I mean by this is that there were certain
aspects of black women’s lives that were universal and that contributed to what
some academics call their “cultural preparation for resistance.” And I think these
circumstances actually shed substantial light on how and why these women
responded to the challenges of their time. [slide]
The first significant social circumstance is the fact that black women in the
1950s and 60s were literally on the bottom of the bottom rung of American society.
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Dr. Janet Bell’s late husband, Professor Derrick Bell, who was a civil rights lawyer
and the first tenured African-American professor at Harvard Law School, wrote a
book in the early 1990s about the persistence of racism in American life that he
entitled “Faces At the Bottom of the Well.” [slide] My parents had this book on
their coffee table for many years, and I remember staring at the image on the cover
when I was growing up; I found it difficult to reconcile the image of the person,
who seemed to be smiling, with the depressing message that the title and subtitle
conveyed. I thought about this book cover again for the first time in forty years
when I started preparing for this speech, because, before the civil rights gains of
the 1960s, black women were the quintessential faces at the bottom of the well of
American society, given their existence at the intersection of race and gender—
both of which were highly disfavored characteristics.
Black women had less status than both black men and white women, and it
didn’t help that many of them were relegated to domestic service jobs [slide],
meaning that they worked in white people’s homes as servants, and were thereby
constantly reminded of their own subservience to white privilege. And there was
no realistic prospect of upward mobility; the very fabric of society was designed to
keep them in their place. (Bell at 171) [slide] There were some black families who
managed to accumulate some wealth. But as far as their social status in the overall
society, there was no relevant class distinction, and most people in the black
community, with or without money, recognized their common fate (Bell at 19 -
20).
The “double (or triple) consciousness” of the limitations of race and sex and
class (Bell at 154) that many black women had gave rise to a certain moral clarity
grounded in the value of respect for others (Bell at 155). It is not surprising that
people who are persistently oppressed develop a keen sense of what justice
requires. And being at the bottom of the well also breeds courage. [slide] There is
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a certain resilience that is borne out of constantly having to face seemingly
insurmountable barriers. If nothing else, already being at the bottom means that
you don’t have far to fall, and that, in turn, can generate a fighting spirit and a
nothing-to-lose “freedom” to risk everything when the opportunity to improve
one’s lot arises. [Gyant article at 629, 632]
The second circumstance that I think is important to mention is the fact that
black women leaders had strong cultural bonds that helped them to find the
strength to persevere. [slide] Black churches, for example, were, and have always
been, pillars of the community. [Bell at 26 – 28] Black women also formed social
and community groups [slide], and these organizations often mirrored the
messages that black women received in church: lessons about long-suffering
endurance, self-sufficiency, and hope; including, the belief that, whatever one was
going through, God works all things together for good. The core value of faith in
God and in humanity provided a sense of purpose, and indeed, in an academic
article entitled “Passing the Torch: African American Women in the Civil Rights
Movement,” which was published in the Journal of Black Studies in 1996,
LaVerne Gyant reported that “many black women [sincerely] believed that their
role as leader was “a God-given quality’ although they had ‘to hone it and shape it
and work with it.” (Gyant at 641) Dorothy Height identified another source of
purpose—empathy—when she said that black “women have what I call a humane
sense. They’re concerned about what is going on with children, with the sick, with
the elderly. They have learned. And they will join hands—they might have their
disagreements and whatnot—but when it comes down to it, I always say, women
know how to get things done.” (Capehart at 15)
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Now, admittedly, to some, a person who stands up for themselves and
others, and portrays such a steadfast belief in her own self-worth (an “I can do all
things” mentality) can come across as arrogant. But, again, context is important.
Black women’s enduring faith in their own ability to impact their circumstances,
with God’s help, was not only fodder for the will to challenge the status quo but
also a coping mechanism that made it possible for them to get out of bed every day
and face a society that scorned them. In this sense, having unwavering faith in
one’s own God-given talents and abilities was actually crucial to black women’s
survival, and research demonstrates that black women civil rights leaders almost
uniformly led self-directed, faith-filled, purpose-driven lives.
The third and final circumstance that I want to highlight here today, is the
fact that black women civil rights leaders appeared to have an unshakable
commitment to the ideals of American society. [slide] Black women routinely
“contribute[d] toward a better quality of life in Black communities and in society at
large” during the Civil Rights Movement, and Gyant’s article posits that, more
than anything else, “it was their commitment to uplift the community that
motivated women to assume a leadership role.” (Gyant at 641)
I think that commitment is actually a species of the authenticity that Bell’s
dissertation identifies. In short, the black women who endured Jim Crow
segregation were not big on hypocrisy: they knew what freedom meant, and they
knew that it was being denied to black Americans, even as this country purported
to promote the core values of liberty and equality. Their refusal to accept anything
less is emblematic of their deep commitment to these principles, as well as their
ability to “focus[] on the present while also holding a strategic vision for the future
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of the black community.” (Bell at 158). In Bell’s view, the authentic contribution
of African American women leaders is that they were somehow able to “hold in
their hearts and minds the brutality of slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation,” but not
be defeated or [hopelessly] embittered as a result, and instead to “forg[e] ahead
with hope, determination resiliency, and vision.” (Bell at 153) Thus, as Bell
observes, for many of these women, the Civil Rights Movement was “not just one
isolated event after another, but a series of events tied to one idea”: the betterment
of black people and society. (Bell at 158)
This same theme resounds throughout “1619,” the popular new historical
accounting published by the NYTimes. [slide] In the series—which has also been
published as a podcast—acclaimed investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones
(who happens to be a black woman) explains that the men who drafted and enacted
the Constitution founded this nation on certain ideals: freedom; equality;
democracy. Yet, at the time they formulated these principles, the institution of
slavery already existed in the colonies—ever since the year 1619, when 20-to-30
Africans who had been captured in their homeland arrived in the colonies by ship
and were exchanged for goods. Jones highlights the irony of the situation even
further when she notes that at the very moment that Thomas Jefferson penned the
self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence, a black relative—a slave—
had been brought into his office to serve him.
Thus, it is Jones’s provocative thesis that the America that was born in 1776
was not the perfect union that it purported to be, and that it is actually only through
the hard work, struggles, and sacrifices of African Americans over the past two
centuries that the United States has finally become the free nation that the Framers
initially touted. In one especially poignant segment of the podcast, Jones says:
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[W]e are raised to think about 1776 as the beginning of our
democracy. But when that ship arrived on the horizon . . . in
1619[, the] decision made by the colonists to purchase that
group of 20 to 30 human beings—that was a beginning, too.
And it would actually be those very people who were denied
citizenship in their own country, who were denied the
protections of our founding documents, who would fight the
hardest and most successfully to make those ideals real, not
just for themselves, but for all Americans.
(Podcast, Episode 1, at 39:24 – 40:00) And, indeed, as Jones points out in the
podcast, not only the post-Civil War Reconstruction Amendments to the
Constitution and the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s, but all subsequent civil rights
gains—from women’s rights to gay marriage—rely, in part, on the trailblazing
work of black civil rights leaders, including black women like the ones I have
profiled.
In the time I have remaining, I want to touch briefly on modern times, which
also undoubtedly reflects the legacy of black women civil rights pioneers like the
ones I have discussed. Although progress has been slow, and, as one historian
remarked in 1980, “the full leadership potential of Black females throughout our
history in this country has remained a relatively untapped—or at best,
underutilized—resource” (Gyant at 641(quoting Dumas)), this country has
progressed quite a bit, thanks to the hard work of those who have come before.
For example, we have gone from the appointment of one black female
federal judge to scores of them [slide]: by my count, there have been 57 black
female judges appointed to the federal bench since Constance Baker Motley’s
appointment in 1966. And it was striking to hear that [slide] every single judge
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who was recently elected to the state courts in one Houston, Texas county was a
black woman!
[slide] Black women have also been elected to powerful positions in
Congress, and [slide] are political players in their own right with platforms that
permit them to address pressing social issues. [slide] They are also the bona fide
leaders of mass social movements, such as #Me Too and Black Lives Matter, and
[slide] are routinely called upon offer cogent commentary on the workings of
government, on television and elsewhere, and, of course, they have also persisted
in authentically and courageously [slide] speaking truth to power, standing in the
gap between the powerful and the powerless, and providing crucial civil-rights
litigation support. (Sherilyn Ifall, head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
warrants her own slide.)
[slide] Black women financiers also make significant contributions—these
women head major corporations, and give of their time, and resources, to support
causes of significance within the black community.
Thus, it is clear that black women have now assumed positions of authority as
legal and political officials, litigators, entrepreneurs, and other social influencers,
in far greater numbers than before. Yet, they are still demonstrating courage,
purpose, and authenticity in various ways, and are still doing the heavy lifting that
is necessary to propel our society forward. Professor Derrick Bell acknowledged
this, and also touted the limitless potential of black women’s leadership, in 1996,
when he dedicated one of his final books to his mother and wife, and in the
inscription, unflinchingly declared his [QUOTE] “belief in the potential of women
to save us all.” [END QUOTE]
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IV. CONCLUSION
So, with that, I have reached the end of my remarks. I have two remaining
slides to show you: one of which, actually brings us back full circle—to 1970, the
year that I was born. [slide] As it turns out, the very first issue of Essence
Magazine was published in May of that year, and one of the articles aptly
summarizes the core characteristics of black women leaders in the Civil Rights
Movement era in terms similar to those that I have less artfully articulated in this
talk. The article states that black women leaders are “bound together by race, by
sex, by impatience, [and] by the simple yet complex proposition that Black people
shall have dignity in America [and] in the world.” It salutes several of the black
women who took up the mantle and maintained the struggle for civil rights just a
few years prior, and describes them as steadfastly believing that “whatever is
required to obtain that dignity shall be done. And whatever forces combine to
deny that dignity shall be removed forthwith.”
And I will finish with what might be my favorite civil rights photograph of
modern times. [slide] This iconic image, which was taken by Reuters
photographer Jonathan Bauchman during a 2016 protest of the police-involved
fatal shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, has won several awards and
has name: it is called “Taking a Stand in Baton Rouge.” The picture features a
nurse from Pennsylvania named Ieshia Evans, who had traveled to Louisiana to
attend her first protest. She was arrested by the two heavily armed officers you see
in that photograph, and spent the night and most of the following day in jail.
Not surprisingly, this photo of the moment of her arrest was a viral
sensation, and in my view, it is worthy of that acclaim, because just like the
description of black women leaders in Essence, it captures perfectly the very
essence of black women’s civil rights stewardship over the years. Ms. Evans is
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unflinchingly courageous, purposeful, and authentic. She persists despite what
appears to be nearly insurmountable obstacles, and clearly believes in her own
power to effect change. Above all, she exudes and demands dignity, and as such,
much like the black women leaders of the past, reminds us all to strive for our
better selves in fulfillment of the promise of our great Nation.
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