Black Women Leaders in the Civil Rights Movement (Essay Sample)

Black Women Leaders in the Civil Rights Movement
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Black Women Leaders in the Civil Rights Movement
Introduction
Black women in the United States resisted oppression, the underlying reason why they created the civil rights movement. Being enslaved in the United States of America, they came together to fight for their freedom, as well as their inclusion in the women’s suffrage movement following the abolition of slavery (Collier-Thomas & Franklin, 2001). Their fights yielded some results. For instance, in 1920, they gained the right to participate in elections through voting. However, Jim Crow racial disenfranchisement and segregation laws, which were implemented by extreme violence, suppressed black women’s suffrage. Despite the fact that African Americans were deprived of their voting rights during the Jim Crow era, many of them defied the era oppression by subversive and overt means. At that time, black women’s leadership and militant activism helped in the creation of the Civil Rights Movement (Collier-Thomas & Franklin, 2001). Such African American leaders as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. became the icons of the 1950-60s. However, the grassroots activism and organizational strategies of women, including Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Septima Clark, and Ella Baker, pushed the movement forward and inspired new activists.
Even though the movement resulted in personal losses, many black women are known to be human rights and civil activists. This tradition is evident in today’s women leaders and activists, such as Alice Walker, Maxine Waters, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Marian Wright Edelman, and Angela Davis (Crawford et al., 1990). Even though black women played a greater role in civil rights movement, they enjoyed less appreciation for their efforts and dedication. This is attributed to the fact that men perceived women as sidetracking the focus of the movement from race to gender-related issues. Black women with their communities were responsible for mobilizing people and capital that enhanced the success of the movement. The dedication of black women to the movement, such as Hedge-man, Heigh, and other women mentioned above, enabled them to fight successfully for their rights in the society.
Black women endured the horror of white ferocity and carried the burden of discrimination in education and employment for a long time. Equally, they suffered from the demoralization of oral abuse and the pain of segregation ever since the Civil War began. As such, they felt the need to free themselves from social, economic, and political oppression just as black men did. However, throughout the civil rights period, many organizations allowed women to work only behind the scenes while men were on the forefronts. Black women served as significant political representatives; they spearheaded the sit-in demonstrations and the bus boycott spurring the freedom rides. In 1963, at the peak of the movement, many women, including organizers and activists such as Fannie Hamer Lou, Ella Baker, and Jo Robinson Ann, joined the Protest on Washington. Others, like Kathleen Cleaver, Ericka Huggins, Assata Shakur, and Elaine Brown, decided to lead their people with their own ideas (Houck & Dixon, 2009).
Black Women in the U.S. society
Black women have continuously refuted oppression since they were enslaved in the United States. The black women leaders practiced the legacy of social activism in their civil rights movement. The legacy is considered a continuation of their struggle against racism that commenced during American slavery. Black women in this period were restricted to a strange opposition. For instance, the institution of slavery did not respect their feminine nature. For this reason, they were expected to work in the fields and offer their services to their slave masters. Additionally, they were exposed to physical violence just like their male counterparts (Collier-Thomas & Franklin, 2001). Black women had no authority over their body because it was susceptible to their masters, male slaves, or overseers’ sexual desires. As a result, they were defenseless. Compared to black women, white women were considered delicate creatures, and white men protected them. Because of this oppression, black women resisted the system, and instead of giving birth to more slaves to benefit their masters, they aborted their fetuses. Equally, they refused to conceive or committed infanticide with the primary objective of preventing their children from leading a life of slavery (Crawford et al., 1990). Such instances symbolized the desire of black women to have authority over their life, fertility, and sexuality, which were under the control of their slave masters.
In addition, some black women resisted the institution of slavery by attempting to escape from their plantations. For instance, Harriet Tubman risked her own life in order to help those who were in pursuit of their freedom. She was even willing to murder any slave who desired to return to slavery. Her actions demonstrate a remarkably masculine and militancy feature that characterized black women at that time. The establishment of slave family was significantly impacted by the system of slavery. In these families, the role of a black woman was essential because she was tasked with the responsibility of nurturing, disciplining, and naming children. However, her role as a slave was more important, and her role as a wife and mother came second. Thus, she was expected to dedicate her time to her slave master’s needs and then find some time to bond with her children (Houck & Dixon, 2009).
The gender and racial oppression experienced by black women under slavery triggered in them an urge to resist the forces that aimed at destroying them. As slaves, black women were subjected to hard and strenuous work just to enrich their masters, and as wives, they were subjected to sexual abuse and physical violence. As a consequence, as mothers, black women passed their awareness of being oppressed to their children. This was done in order to adequately prepare their children for the world that discriminated them based on their skin color. Because of this awareness, black women took part in Women’s Suffrage Movement that aimed to give power to black communities and educate their children. However, they also faced significant discrimination in their fight for their rights in the society. Regardless, they continued to challenge the sexists and racist system that was prevalent in the United States. Many of them participated in activism that was later perceived as the commencement of the Civil Rights Movement.
Various black women leaders in Civil Rights Movements
Black women worked tirelessly, and imperiled their lives while fighting for social revolution and get their civil rights. They included;
Rosa Parks
She joined the Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Montgomery Voters League to inspire blacks to register as voters. She was registered as a voter in 1945, after trying to register for two years with no success. Working at Maxwell Field Air Base that had assimilated facilities influenced her thinking, and she avoided city buses and segregated facilities. She was the youth group advice-giver in Montgomery NAACP where she showed the youth the importance of fighting segregation. In 1955, while in Montgomery, Rosa Parks declined to give up her seat in the bus to a white man (Allen, 1996). This sparked a mass boycott by many, especially black women household workers who had filled the back seats of buses for a long time. Similarly, other women activists who had encouraged city officials for many years to integrate the buses supported her cause. As such, they organized car pools and sold pies and cakes to raise money for alternative transportation. Parks’ death shows the important role she played in the civil rights movement.
Ella Baker
Baker was a longtime leader and a charismatic labor planner in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1930, she teamed up with George Schuyler and formed the Young Negroes Cooperative League (YNCL); later she became the national director of the organization. The YNCL concentrated on establishing consumer cooperatives for deprived people. After joining the Works Progress Administration in 1935, she wrote a number of brochures, organized and held consumer workshops (Allen, 1996). In addition, she organized protests against police cruelty and worked together with labor unions to advocate for workers protection in Harlem. Baker became a member of the NAACP in 1938 as a field planner travelling all over the South, organizing new chapters for the NAACP, and recruiting new members to the group. She believed that for successful collective action it is important to have great personal ties with all blacks, including those with little or no proper education.
In 1943, she was selected to become the national director of the NAACP branches; this made her become the highest-ranking woman among the NAACP staff. She was now expected to oversee every field secretaries and coordinate charters at the local level with the nationwide office. Similarly, she came up with new ideas about empowering people at the grassroots level through participating in leadership and decision making process of the organization. As a result, she organized leadership conferences at the local level to teach delegates about education, political pressure, and mass protest. Baker believed that persons did not actually require to be led; instead, they required to be given information, skills, and the chance to lead themselves.
Septima P. Clark
She was frequently referred to as the queen mother of civil rights. She was an activist for National Association for the Promotion of Colored People and an educator. While teaching at Johns Islan...