Open Wide The Freedom Gates

Open Wide The Freedom Gates PDF Author: Dorothy Height
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 0786739754
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

Book Description
Dorothy Height marched at civil rights rallies, sat through tense White House meetings, and witnessed every major victory in the struggle for racial equality. Yet as the sole woman among powerful, charismatic men, someone whose personal ambition was secondary to her passion for her cause, she has received little mainstream recognition -- until now. In her memoir, Dr. Height, now ninety-one, reflects on a life of service and leadership. We witness her childhood encounters with racism and the thrill of New York college life during the Harlem Renaissance. We see her protest against lynchings. We sit with her onstage as Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech. We meet people she knew intimately throughout the decades: W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mary McLeod Bethune, Adam Clayton Powell Sr., Langston Hughes, and many others. And we watch as she leads the National Council of Negro Women for forty-one years, her diplomatic counsel sought by U.S. Presidents from Eisenhower to Clinton. After the fierce battles of the 1960s, Dr. Height concentrates on troubled black communities, on issues like rural poverty, teen pregnancy and black family values. In 1994, her efforts are officially recognized. Along with Rosa Parks, she receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Womanpower Unlimited and the Black Freedom Struggle in Mississippi

Womanpower Unlimited and the Black Freedom Struggle in Mississippi PDF Author: Tiyi Makeda Morris
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820347302
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Book Description
Morris provides the first comprehensive examination of the Jackson, Mississippi-based women's organization Womanpower Unlimited. Originally instated in 1961 to sustain the civil rights movement, the organization also revitalized black women's social and political activism in the state through its diverse agenda and grassroots approach.

The Crisis

The Crisis PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 68

Book Description
The Crisis, founded by W.E.B. Du Bois as the official publication of the NAACP, is a journal of civil rights, history, politics, and culture and seeks to educate and challenge its readers about issues that continue to plague African Americans and other communities of color. For nearly 100 years, The Crisis has been the magazine of opinion and thought leaders, decision makers, peacemakers and justice seekers. It has chronicled, informed, educated, entertained and, in many instances, set the economic, political and social agenda for our nation and its multi-ethnic citizens.

Wednesdays in Mississippi

Wednesdays in Mississippi PDF Author: Debbie Z. Harwell
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1626744084
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
As tensions mounted before Freedom Summer, one organization tackled the divide by opening lines of communication at the request of local women: Wednesdays in Mississippi (WIMS). Employing an unusual and deliberately feminine approach, WIMS brought interracial, interfaith teams of northern middle-aged, middle- and upper-class women to Mississippi to meet with their southern counterparts. Sponsored by the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), WIMS operated on the belief that the northern participants' gender, age, and class would serve as an entrée to southerners who had dismissed other civil rights activists as radicals. The WIMS teams' respectable appearance and quiet approach enabled them to build understanding across race, region, and religion where other overtures had failed. The only civil rights program created for women by women as part of a national organization, WIMS offers a new paradigm through which to study civil rights activism, challenging the stereotype of Freedom Summer activists as young student radicals and demonstrating the effectiveness of the subtle approach taken by "proper ladies." The book delves into the motivations for women's civil rights activism and the role religion played in influencing supporters and opponents of the civil rights movement. Lastly, it confirms that the NCNW actively worked for integration and black voting rights while also addressing education, poverty, hunger, housing, and employment as civil rights issues. After successful efforts in 1964 and 1965, WIMS became Workshops in Mississippi, which strived to alleviate the specific needs of poor women. Projects that grew from these efforts still operate today.

Women Civil Rights Leaders

Women Civil Rights Leaders PDF Author: Anne Wallace Sharp
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC
ISBN: 1420508806
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 122

Book Description
African American women have always placed great importance on helping others within their community. They have long formed the backbones of their families, church congregations, and communities. Black women have also played significant roles in the fight for racial equality. This book examines the roles of African American women in the struggle for racial equality and the reasons why these women were often undervalued by their male counterparts and largely ignored by historians until rather recently. Full chapters are devoted to describing the life and leadership of Ida Wells, Dorothy Height, Septima Clark, Rosa Parks, Jo Ann Robinson, Daisy Bates, Ella Baker, and Fannie Lou Hamer. Sidebars throughout the text highlight the contributions of other women who were influential during the Civil Rights Movement.

Unsung Heroes

Unsung Heroes PDF Author: Jennifer Lombardo
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC
ISBN: 153456862X
Category : Young Adult Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 106

Book Description
Many of the most famous faces of the civil rights movement were men, but women played a very large part in the fight for equal rights. Largely ignored by historians as well as by their male contemporaries, it is only relatively recently that the women who helped make the civil rights movement possible have come into the spotlight. Through annotated quotes, historical photographs, and in-depth sidebars, this volume shares the stories of the courageous women who defied the gender stereotypes of their era and fought alongside men to achieve social change on a never-before-seen scale.

Strategic Sisterhood

Strategic Sisterhood PDF Author: Rebecca Tuuri
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469638916
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 339

Book Description
When women were denied a major speaking role at the 1963 March on Washington, Dorothy Height, head of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), organized her own women's conference for the very next day. Defying the march's male organizers, Height helped harness the womanpower waiting in the wings. Height's careful tactics and quiet determination come to the fore in this first history of the NCNW, the largest black women's organization in the United States at the height of the civil rights, Black Power, and feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Offering a sweeping view of the NCNW's behind-the-scenes efforts to fight racism, poverty, and sexism in the late twentieth century, Rebecca Tuuri examines how the group teamed with U.S. presidents, foundations, and grassroots activists alike to implement a number of important domestic development and international aid projects. Drawing on original interviews, extensive organizational records, and other rich sources, Tuuri's work narrates the achievements of a set of seemingly moderate, elite activists who were able to use their personal, financial, and social connections to push for change as they facilitated grassroots, cooperative, and radical activism.

The Spirit of Justice

The Spirit of Justice PDF Author: Jemar Tisby
Publisher: Zondervan
ISBN: 0310144876
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
The Black History You Never Knew: Uncovering Unsung Heroes in the Struggle for Racial Justice. The Spirit of Justice reveals the stories of the people who fought against racism and agitated for justice—and what we can learn from their example, their suffering, their methods, and their hope. How is it that people still work for change after continuously seeing the worst of humanity and experiencing the most demoralizing setbacks? What keeps them going? It is that spirit of justice that rises up "like a war horse," as Myrlie Evers-Williams famously said. It is a sense in the hearts of people who hunger and thirst for righteousness. In this book, award-winning author Jemar Tisby will open your eyes to the "pattern of endurance" in the centuries-long struggle for Black freedom in America. Through a historical survey of the nation from its founding to the present day, this book gives real-world examples of people who opposed racism, how they did it, what it cost, and what they gained for themselves and others. For those who were galvanized by Tisby's call to action in his acclaimed The Color of Compromise, this book will inspire you to see past the complicity of the church and gain the determination to join the fight for racial justice, no matter the cost. As Tisby writes, "The Spirit of justice is always at work to inspire followers of Christ to undertake acts of liberation and bear witness to the good news of their savior."

It's Our Movement Now

It's Our Movement Now PDF Author: Laura L. Lovett
Publisher: University Press of Florida
ISBN: 0813072506
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Book Description
Profiles of influential Black women activists at a historic moment This volume offers a panoramic view of Black feminist politics through the stories of a remarkable cross section of Black women who attended the 1977 National Women’s Conference. These women advocated for civil and women’s rights but also for accessibility, lesbians, sex workers, welfare recipients, laborers, and children. The women featured in this book include icons Coretta Scott King and Michelle Cearcy, a teenager who served as a torchbearer at the conference. Contributors offer insights into the lives of Gloria Scott, Dorothy Height, Freddie Groomes-McLendon, and Jeffalyn Johnson. The profiles include activist organizers Georgia McMurray, Barbara Smith, Johnnie Tillmon, Addie Wyatt, and Florynce Kennedy. The hard-won achievements of politicians are examined and celebrated, including those of Barbara Jordan, Shirley Chisholm, Maxine Waters, C. Delores Tucker, the first Black female secretary of state for Pennsylvania, and Yvonne Burke, one of the first Black women elected to Congress and the first representative to give birth while serving. The final profiles cover Clara McClaughlin, reporter Melba Tolliver, and photojournalist Diana Mara Henry, who shared the details of the conference and the continual work being done by Black women with others through various media channels. This book places the diversity of Black women’s experiences and their leadership at the center of the history of the women’s movement. Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Practice of U.S. Women's History

The Practice of U.S. Women's History PDF Author: S. J. Kleinberg
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813541816
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382

Book Description
In the last several decades, U.S. women's history has come of age. Not only have historians challenged the national narrative on the basis of their rich explorations of the personal, the social, the economic, and the political, but they have also entered into dialogues with each other over the meaning of women's history itself. In this collection of seventeen original essays on women's lives from the colonial period to the present, contributors take the competing forces of race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, and region into account. Among many other examples, they examine how conceptions of gender shaped government officials' attitudes towards East Asian immigrants; how race and gender inequality pervaded the welfare state; and how color and class shaped Mexican American women's mobilization for civil and labor rights.