Black Women in America – Part 34
So many African American women deserve our recognition and honor. Since last year we have focused on Black Female Firsts. For the past few weeks we have covered the stories of Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Rosa Parks, Reverend Addie Wyatt and Mary Church Terrell. Then in our last post we related the stories of Elizabeth Freeman (Mum Bett) (1744? – 1829) who was the first black female slave to sue for her freedom in Massachusetts and Mother (Charleszetta) Waddles (1912-2001) – a Detroit activist who founded an organization that still helps the poor today.
This week we will focus on black women who were the unnoticed and underappreciated founders of many movements that brought about more freedom and equality for African Americans:
Dorothy Irene Height – Champion of equality and justice (1912 – 2010))
Jo Ann Robinson – Montgomery bus boycott (1912-1992)
Autherine Lucy – Univ. of Alabama student – 1st black to enroll (b. 1929)
Fannie Lou Hamer – Non-violent activism (1917-1977)
Dorothy Irene Height – (1912 – 2010)
Honored by four American presidents, Dorothy Height is remembered as a remarkable and tireless advocate who fought for racial and gender equality. Her long, selfless life of 98 years was spent trying to build up opportunities for African Americans and all women. Dorothy was one of many women who were active in the civil rights movement who have been overlooked because of their gender and consequently went to work for gender equality as well as racial equality.
Dorothy Height was born in Richmond, Virginia on March 24, 1912. She was an excellent student, excelling in oratory classes. She won a scholarship to attend college. She applied at Barnard College but was not allowed to enter because they changed their mind. They said, “they had already met their quota for Black students.”[1] She applied at New York University where she earned two degrees, getting her bachelor’s in education in 1930 and her master’s in psychology in 1932. Her first job was as a social worker in Harlem, New York. She joined the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) and soon became an effective leader. She created programs in diversity and began to convince YWCA organizations to integrate.
A meeting with Mary McLeod Bethune inspired Dorothy to join the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW).[2] Dorothy focused on reforming the criminal justice system with an eye towards ending the lynching of African American citizens. In 1957 Dorothy became the fourth president of the NCNW and remained so for 40 years. She oversaw voter registration in the South and helped many other civil rights activists.
Dorothy met and worked with so many other activists. I will just highlight a few here:
Political Leaders:
Eleanor Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson – All of these leaders consulted with Dorothy on political issues.
Civil Rights Leaders:
Martin Luther King Jr., A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, John Lewis and James Farmer. Dorothy participated in many of the civil rights marches and demonstrations during the 1960’s including the famous March on Washington. Dorothy stood next to Martin Luther King when he gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. Though she was already noted as a skilled orator she was not invited to talk that day. This made Dorothy realize that gender prejudice was as bad as racial prejudice.
Women’s Equality Leaders:
Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, and Shirley Chisholm. After Dorothy was denied speaking opportunities with the men, she turned to helping the cause of women’s rights. In 1971 she helped to found the National Women’s Political Caucus. Hillary Clinton praised her as a champion of justice who “understood that women’s rights and civil rights are indivisible.”
In 1977 Dorothy retired from the YWCA but continued as a leader in the National Council of Negro Women for two more decades. In 1986 she organized the Black Family Reunion in order to help strengthen black families. The organization still exists today.[3]
Besides all of this, Dorothy also traveled to such places as India where she taught as a professor at the University of Delhi. She helped with the efforts of the Black Women’s Federation of South Africa.
Honors and Accolades:
Citizens Medal Award, given by Ronald Reagan in 1989
Presidential Medal of Freedom, given by Bill Clinton in 1994
Congressional Gold Medal, given by George W. Bush in 2004
Inducted into the Democracy Hall of Fame in 2004
Dubbed “the godmother of the civil rights movement” by Barack Obama.
Dorothy also received an estimated 24 honorary degrees.
Dorothy passed away on April 20, 2010. Her funeral was held at the Washington National Cathedral. On February 1, 2017, the United States Postal Service issued the Dorothy Height Forever which was used to kick off Black History month that year.
Jo Ann Robinson – (1912-1992)
Jo Ann Robinson was the real backbone of the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56. When you read history today you hear mostly about Martin Luther King, Jr. And the Big Six – all men. But the fund raisers and planners and laborers were mostly women. Jo Ann was willing to go to great lengths for freedom for black Americans. Because she had the courage to face the mayor and demand desegregation she was imprisoned and suffered violence. She gained national attention and helped to win some equal rights for African Americans.
Jo Ann was born on April 17, 1912, in Culloden, Georgia. She was the twelfth child of Owen Boston Gibson and Dollie Webb Gibson. Her father died when she was only 6 and her mother moved the family to Macon. Jo Ann did well in school becoming the valedictorian of her high school class. She was the first college graduate in her family.
She taught in public schools for the next five years while earning a master’s degree from Atlanta University. Jo Ann studied English at Columbia University. She then moved to Texas to teach at Mary Allen College.
In 1949 Jo Ann moved to Alabama to teach at Alabama State College. She was active in her church, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church (Where Martin Luther King was later the pastor), and in her community. She joined the Women’s Political Council (WPC) believing that political action was necessary to make the needed changes in society for racial equality.
During the 1940’s Jo Ann experienced considerable racial prejudice. Once when she sat in the empty white section of a bus, the driver pulled over and went back to yell at her. Jo Ann was afraid he would hit her, so she ran from the bus. She was as outraged as she was frightened so she decided to mobilize against segregation. Having become the president of the WPC in 1950, she was able to focus the organization on desegregating buses. She met with attorneys and city leadership, but they were not interested in integration. Then she thought of a boycott.
Jo Ann Robinson organized a bus boycott in Alabama after Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955.[4] Rosa Parks refused to move out of the white section of the bus and was taken into custody. Because Jo Ann had had her own experience of abuse on the segregated buses, she decided to do something about it.
She distributed 50,000 flyers with the help of others calling for the boycott to begin on December 5. The boycott was successful, having lasted until December 20, 1956. It was during this time that Martin Luther King came into national prominence. Jo Ann was appointed to the board of the Montgomery Improvement Association and King asked her to produce a weekly newsletter.
Because of her leadership role in the boycott, Jo Ann became a target. She was arrested and suffered violence at the hands of the police. They threw a rock through her window and poured acid on her car. The abuse was so bad that state police were called in to protect her. Finally, a federal district court declared segregation unconstitutional.
After the successful completion of her boycott, Jo Ann resigned her position at Alabama State College and moved to Louisiana where she taught at Grambling College. Later she moved to Los Angeles where she taught in public schools. Jo Ann died in Los Angeles on August 29, 1992.
If you want to read an account of what it was actually like to be there in the 1950’s and how women played major roles in the fight for freedom, you can get a copy of Jo Ann’s memoir – The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Woman Who Started It in 1987. (It’s available on Amazon and other stores)
Autherine Lucy – (1929-2022)
In our study of Black Female Firsts, we must not leave out Autherine Lucy. She was the first African American student to be accepted at the University of Alabama (1956). Amazingly because the university changed their minds and suspended her, she did not finally get to go back until 1989!! Here is the story of this courageous woman.
Autherine Lucy was born on October 5, 1929, the youngest of ten sisters and brothers in Shiloh, Alabama. She was very intelligent and wanted to study in higher education. She attended Selma University in 1947 where she earned a teaching certificate. Then she received a bachelor’s degree in English in 1952 from Miles College. There she met Pollie Anne Myers who became a great friend.
Pollie and Autherine decided they wanted a further degree. They applied at the University of Alabama where they were accepted in September 1952. While they were filling out their paperwork the university became aware that Autherine and Pollie were African Americans. The university changed their minds telling the women they were not welcome.
The women contacted Arthur Shores and Thurgood Marshall who agreed to help them. They wrote to the president of the school but to no avail. Shores and Marshall decided to build a court case against the university, but before they could finish, Marshall and his team won the Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka case. In 1954 the United States Supreme Court declared segregation illegal. Marshall took Jo Ann and Pollie’s case to district court and won the right for the women to attend the university.
The university tried to find other ways to keep the women out. They hired private investigators and learned that Pollie was pregnant before she was married. The University was able to stop her because that was against their rules. They had nothing against Autherine, so she started attending the university alone. The university found other ways to discourage her from attending. They didn’t let her live on campus or eat in the cafeteria.
They couldn’t prevent her from registering for classes. She began on February 3, 1956, but white people soon found she was attending classes. On her third day of class Autherine found herself surrounded by screaming people who began to chase her and throw things at her. White students threw rotten eggs at her. She had to lock herself in a classroom. The police escorted her home and the university voted to suspend her that night.
Marshall and Shores tried to help Autherine sue the university for not protecting her. The lawyers couldn’t prove that the university was actually backing the mob, so the suit fell. The public found out and accused Autherine of making up rumors about the school. The university used that as an excuse to expel her. Even though she wasn’t allowed to attend classes, Marshall was worried about Autherine’s safety, so his wife and he invited her to live in their home.
Time went by and thirty-two years later Autherine was asked to speak at the very university that kicked her out. Teachers at the University of Alabama invited her to come back as a student. In April 1988 the university sent her a letter saying she was no longer expelled. She began taking classes in 1989 and graduated with an M.A. degree in Mary 1992. The university established an endowment fellowship in her honor. Her portrait hangs in the student union.
Autherine died on March 2, 2022, at the age of 92. She leaves a lasting legacy of courage for black students to pursue higher education.
Fannie Lou Hamer – (1917-1977)
Fannie Lou Hamer paid a high price for her activism. She lost her job after registering to vote; she was beaten, threatened, arrested and shot at. In prison she was beaten so badly that she suffered permanent kidney damage. She was willing to suffer all of this so that she could “work for my people.”[5] She worked for civil rights until the day of her death.
Fannie Lou Townsend was born on October 6, 1917, in the Mississippi Delta, the youngest of twenty children. Her parents were sharecroppers and Fannie began working in the fields when she was only 6 years old. Around age 12 she dropped out of school to work full time. Even after she married in 1944 to Perry “Pap” Hamer, she continued to work as a sharecropper on a cotton plantation in Mississippi. The Hamer’s adopted children since Fannie was unable to have her own. When she had surgery to remove a tumor the doctors gave her a hysterectomy without her consent.
It was in the summer of 1962 that Fannie Lou’s life took a major turn. She attended the local meeting of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) where she was encouraged to register to vote. Though state and local law enforcement harassed her she filled out the application. Losing her job made her determined to help other African Americans to get the right to vote. It is ironic that Fannie Lou Hamer suffered violence while working for non-violent means of securing justice.
Fannie Lou became an organizer for the SNCC in her community and began to fight for civil rights. Voter registration was a main focus for her, but she also became politically active in other ways. She helped to found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. She made a bid for Congress but lost in the primaries. However, the cause of civil rights was brought to the attention of the whole country during the televised broadcast of the convention.
Besides political involvement, Fannie Lou helped to found organizations that would give more business opportunities to minorities. Some groups were formed to provide services to families including childcare.
Fannie Lou helped to form the National Women’s Political Caucus n 1971. Sadly, in 1976 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She stayed active in the cause of civil rights until finally succumbing on March 14, 1977 in a hospital in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. She is buried in the Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden in Ruleville beneath a tombstone with one of her most famous quotes: “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”[6]
Conclusion
All of these women – Dorothy Height, Jo Ann Robinson, Autherine Lucy, and Fannie Lou Hamer – made great sacrifices in order to get more freedom for minorities. Speaking about the progress of civil rights at Fannie Lou Hamer’s funeral in 1977, Andrew Young Jr., then U.S. delegate to the United Nations said that strides had been made through the “sweat and blood” of activists like Fannie Lou Hamer. “None of us would be where we are today had she not been here then,” he said, according to The New York Times. Young could have been speaking about all four of these women, or even any of the women we have talked about in the last few months on this website. We can thank God for their courage, wisdom, and fortitude in gaining more freedom and opportunities for all people.
[1] From the Biography website at: https://www.biography.com/activist/dorothy-height
April 21, 2021
[2] Read more about Mary McLeod Bethune on my post of April 11, 2017. https://authormarywalker.com/2017/04/11/mary-mcleod-bethune-educator-and-leader/
[3] The Black Family Reunion can be found at: https://www.myblackfamilyreunion.org
[4] See the story of Rosa Parks posted earlier this year at: https://authormarywalker.com/2023/02/21/black-women-activists-rosa-parks/
[5] From “Fannie Lou Hamer” on the Biography website: https://www.biography.com/activists/fannie-lou-hamer
[6] Ibid. Biography website on Fannie Lou Hamer.
