African-American women in the civil rights movement
Women including Rosa Parks, who led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Diane Nash, the main organizer of the Nashville sit-ins, and Kathleen Cleaver, the first woman on the committee of the Black Panther Party.
It was only through sheer perseverance and strength were they able to make such detrimental achievements towards the movement.When addressing Black women activism, such as that present in the civil rights movement, Alice Walker uses the term "womanism" to encompass the motives of and reasoning behind African American female participation.
This perspective translated to the New World, as demonstrated in the female slave's role in caregiving as well as upholding familial stability due to the Black man's lack of power within American society.
Walker views feminism as dealing with the White woman trapped in the private sphere, unable to enter the labor force due to gender norms.
African American women have historically worked in the labor force, leading Walker to define their struggles as different from the White woman's confinement to the home.
Alice Walker's term considers the burden of both leading and providing financially for the family as part of the Black woman's struggle and defines their ties to a sense of community.
[1]African American women held together Black households and their communities while adapting and overcoming obstacles they faced due to their gender, race, and class.
[6] Many women opened their stores or homes to create safe-havens, where civil rights workers could meet and discuss plans or strategies, while some used their careers to raise funds for the cause.
[3] African American women suffered from exclusion in formal leadership positions (roles holding authority under an official title), as demonstrated in minister-led organizations, like the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), as well as secular groups, like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Irene West was the only woman on the nine-number committee to form a bank and savings association, and Rosa Parks was the only one tasked with drafting the MIA constitution.
The SCLC and other Church organizations featured a predominantly male executive board, leading many women, such as Septima Clark and Ella Baker, to feel oppressed and objectified under a patriarchal system.
The secular organization SNCC upheld a structure that enforced female subordination, giving women roles that relied on the leadership of a higher position of power.
As bridge leaders, these women formed valuable connections with those unable to gain political power, thus amplifying potential constituents’ voices and communicating their messages within the social movement.
Female bridge leaders worked to create personal connections with these Southerners by hearing their goals and experiences while simultaneously merging these ideas with the civil rights agenda.
Women within the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party also formulated valuable ties with those in the local community and worked to increase the area's voter registration.
[9] Women not only provided help to those in power but also held important leadership positions within the civil rights movement, creating Black female support networks.
[3] African American women played a prominent role in the boycott, through assembling participants from the church and other local connections while supporting their own families.
As a bridge leader, Robinson gathered members of the Women's Political Council (WPC) in support of protesting the arrest of Rosa Parks and legal segregation within public transportation.
Using her position as a way to connect the wishes of the movement's participants with the civil rights agenda of formal leaders, Robinson helped start the Montgomery bus boycott.
The "master narrative" depicts a civil rights movement constructed around notable male figures, failing to fully include female contributors.
Although Daisy Bates and Ella Baker both held key positions in established civil rights organizations, each received little recognition as the "movement leaders" within the Black community, and both paid an economic price for their leadership roles.
Septima Poinsette Clark created the Citizenship Education Program at Highlander Folk School in hopes of increasing Black voter registration within the South.
She considered the Black Southerners of these rural communities as vital to propelling the civil rights movement, thus fueling her to act as a bridge leader between this population and those in formal positions of power.
Her program focused on teaching literacy, with the help of teacher Bernice Robinson, to increase African American political knowledge, in hopes of informing these communities of their deprivation of deserved civil rights.
[17] Her, as well as Rosa Parks, Daisy Bates, and Ella Baker were a part of a major turning point in the women's civil rights movement.
Working with Clark under the Citizenship Education Program at Highlander Folk School, Robinson served as a teacher of literacy classes for the region's African Americans, connecting with her students on a personal level.
[9] Womanpower Unlimited, organized by civil rights activist Claire Collins Harvey, proved instrumental in providing necessary clothing and hygiene supplies to incarcerated Freedom Riders.
[1][18] The group formed vital networks of women that encouraged female participation within the civil rights movement in a variety of different areas, such as voter registration and racial integration in education.
Concerned with the international perception of the United States as the subject of criticism of the USSR and other countries, the American government repressed and censored people who publicly critiqued America.
Accusations of being communist and un-American in the height of the Cold War put Baker's career in the Americas to a halt, and American immigration withdrew her right to travel freely.
