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The Inner Circle Builds the Future: How Black Women Have Advanced Black Equality in the US

  • Writer: RS
    RS
  • 7 hours ago
  • 5 min read

We don’t need our history catered. As children, public education leaves us hungry, as we search for a diverse history.


We all learn about Martin Luther King Jr. in school, but not too much about the accomplishments of his wife, Coretta Scott King. We do all learn about Rosa Parks, but who learns about Claudette Colvin or Jo Ann Robinson? Who learns about Pauli Murray and her groundbreaking influence on segregation and sexual discrimination? Who learns about Ella Baker, and the countless Black women who Coretta Scott King said were “...the backbone of the whole Civil Rights Movement”?


These Black women are indispensable historical figures who have advanced the Black experience in the US, as we know it. Why are they not part of our children’s history books? Perhaps I can but honor some of them here.



Septima Poinsette Clark

Ms. Clark may have taught some of your ancestors. She taught for over 40 years across the South, dedicating her summers to teaching at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. She eventually became a workshop director at the Highlander, where she taught and promoted political empowerment via basic literacy instruction, and educated students on how to complete voter registration forms, and about their basic political rights within the US. In fact, when it comes to grassroots citizenship education, she has been dubbed the “Mother of the Movement.” She was also part of the class action lawsuit, filed by the NAACP, which led to pay equity for Black and White teachers in South Carolina. Though she unjustly lost her teacher’s license after 40 years of teaching, the governor of South Carolina reinstated her license in 1976, admitting that it had been an unjust termination. She was also given a Living Legacy Award by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. Maybe our standard textbooks will include her, one day.



Mary Church Terrell

She was one of the founders of the NAACP and the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), serving as president of the latter from 1896 to 1901. She firmly believed that Black people could wipe away racial discrimination by uplifting themselves via education, employment, and community activism. She believed in “Lifting as we climb,” which became the NACW motto. She tirelessly fought for women’s suffrage and civil rights, believing that Black women were “...the only group in this country that [had] two such huge obstacles to surmount…both sex and race.” In 1948, she became the first Black member of the American Association of University Women. About four years before her death, she led the campaign that led to the 1953 Supreme Court ruling that Reconstruction-era anti-discrimination laws in Washington, D.C., were still valid and enforceable, effectively ending segregation in D.C.'s eating facilities. While that case was pending, though, Ms. Terrell had already convinced some 40 public eating facilities to desegregate, a victory achieved via direct picketing and boycotts. She deserves to be in our children’s textbooks.



Mamie Till-Mobley

Our children don’t learn much about her, but perhaps she has taught a lot of them. She became an activist for civil rights after her son Emmett Till’s brutal murder. Though Mississippi tried to keep her son’s casket closed, she fought to have the world see her son’s mutilated body. She conducted speaking engagements to raise money for the NAACP, founded the Emmett Till Players to build literacy and public-speaking skills amongst school-aged children in Chicago, and also founded the Emmett Till Justice Campaign to reopen cold cases of the Civil Rights era. She’s left a legacy of humanitarian efforts, and even taught in the Chicago Public Schools system for 23 years.



Maude Ballou

She was Martin Luther King Jr.’s “right-hand woman.” In fact, she was his personal secretary, helping to organize the carpools that sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott. She even edited early versions of his iconic “I Have A Dream” speech, and helped to edit his first book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story. You would think we would learn about Ms. Ballou, especially since she landed at number 21 on the Montgomery Improvement Association’s list of “persons and churches most vulnerable to violent attacks” in 1957. Unfortunately, there are no photos of her in the public domain.


Daisy Bates

She and her husband founded Arkansas State Press, one of only a few Black American newspapers focused on the Civil Rights Movement. She got a taste of racial discrimination and violence when she was just three years old, having to cope with her mother being killed by three White men. Understandably so, she dedicated much of her life to the Civil Rights Movement. She served as president of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP, which made her a household name (but, somehow, didn’t yield her inclusion in our history books).


A major feat of hers was organizing the Little Rock Nine to integrate Central High School in 1957, even driving these students to school and protecting them from the violent mobs. Though she had to shut down her newspaper due to public threats, she eventually published her memoirs, The Long Shadow of Little Rock. She was also invited to speak at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (albeit a last-minute opportunity because Myrlie Evers had travel delays). Let’s add her to our history books.



Fannie Lou Hamer

Co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), Ms. Hamer was integral in the Civil Rights Movement.


She delivered an impassioned speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention that depicted how she was almost beaten into unconsciousness at the Winona jail, arrested after eating at a “whites-only” lunch counter on her way back from a voter registration workshop. President Lyndon B. Johnson held a press conference in an attempt to stop her speech from getting airtime, but it was all in vain. She was a political activist, and helped to found the National Women’s Political Caucus in 1971. Disillusioned by the political process, though, Ms. Hamer sought economic tactics as a means toward racial equity. She founded the Freedom Farm Cooperative in 1969, a Black farmer cooperative that, for some time, was one of the largest employers in Sunflower County, Mississippi. On this land, nearly 100 low-income housing units were built, many still in existence today. Perhaps she also deserves a spot in our history books.


Maybe the history we teach the young minds of America needs a rewrite, and not just months of focus, each year (e.g., Black History Month, Women’s History Month, etc). We all benefit from learning our diverse history under a cohesive lens, especially long-term. It is not enough to recognize these leaders with awards, prizes, placards and recognition of such. These women are part of our collective history. We need to incorporate them into our standard, mandated education. Our children deserve to understand their diverse history and identify with so many leaders and activists who can inspire them. Standard education has been hurting our children for far too long. We’re overdue for a change.




Further Reading


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