African American women have participated consistently in most of the major social movements in American history. Not just for themselves, but for everyone, they have consistently learned how to come together and lead in forging a more decent and equitable society. Still, an examination of the literature reveals the astonishing frequency with which Black women are overlooked when one talks of their organizing and leadership throughout the duration of the African American Civil Rights movement.1It is evident that historians have often valued men more in the apparatus and achievement of it, even as many women have made valuable contributions at one juncture or another within the Black Freedom Struggle. These stories are, however, put into question by the reality of the struggle for civil rights. Many African American women were leaders at the local level, serving in many cases as liaisons between national and grassroots groups. This paper will look at the roles of African American women in the Civil Rights Movement highlighting their contributions to the struggle and fight for equality and social justice.
Long before the modern African American Civil Rights movement, African American women were active in the struggle for social justice in the US. It is from this bedrock of service and sacrifice that black women continue to organize today. They first organized through the church, then through the founding of Black women's clubs, a movement that began in earnest near the end of the nineteenth century. The founding of the National Council for Negro Women and other such organizations had laid the ground for the women's leading the current civil rights 1Levins, Ashley. 2019. "Unbowed, Unbroken, and Unsung: The Unrecognized Contributions of African American Women in Social Movements, Politics, and the Maintenance of Democracy." William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice 25 (1): 631-655. movement.2The movement inspired a kind of culture in which people, through their actions, started challenging and questioning the order of things in society. Involvement in the movement changed the thinking of the homegrown black women of the churches about their role in society.
Black women were also major forces in the civil rights movement, often working behind the scenes to provide much-needed insight into whether a movement was likely to succeed or fail. Dorothy Height was one of the women who played an instrumental role in organizing some of the most pivotal events; for example, the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.3 However, she never reached the same degree of celebrity accorded her male counterparts. Despite the gender barriers that she had to work through, the leadership that Height was able to exercise through the National Council for Negro Women and her collaboration with other major civil rights leaders, including A. Philip Randolph and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were indispensable in moving events and proposals toward racial justice. Her activism also encompassed generalized social issues, as was made evident with the confounding of the
National Women's Political Caucus, whereby, in conjunction with other feminists like Betty Friedan and Shirley Chisholm, she fought to ramp up political participation among women. The intersectionality between the two struggles for racial and gender justice serves as proof that such women as Height fought on two fronts, seeking equity from each one.
Similarly, other figures on the forefront included Septima Poinsette Clark and Ella Baker, who are examples of the deep ways in which women were very active at the grassroots 3Strassmann, Mark. 2020. The microphone at the March on Washington was dominated by men. But it might never have happened without Dorothy Height. August 28. Accessed September 25, 2024. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dorothy-height-march-on-washington/. 2McCutcheon, Priscilla. 2022. "“When and Where I Enter”: The National Council of Negro Women, Black Women’s Organizing Power, and the Fight to End Hunger." Annals of the American Association of Geographers 112 (8): 2486-2500. level-particularly from an organizational standpoint on the local level. Through her work of establishing Citizenship Schools, Clark fought against the oppression of African Americans through literacy and voter registration by melding everyday concerns with larger political organizations.4Her work, above all within the SCLC, was representative of a set of challenges for women themselves, namely sexism within the movement. Young activists often referred to Baker as a "political mother," and with a facilitator style of participatory democracy, she was more grassroots in sort of leadership than charismatic leadership, which was male-dominated and broadly spread at that time. These efforts from the women tore down not just racial disparities but also conventional patterns of gender in the movement and hence established their critical position in civil rights history.
The legacy of African American women in the civil rights movement remains abundantly clear today, as modern activism continues to be informed by their historical contributions.
Movements such as Black Lives Matter find their roots in the fundamental work these women did: centering an explicitly intersectional approach that focuses on how different forms of oppression interrelate. In fact, the experiences and narratives of African American women lie at the foundation of our perspective of the Civil Rights Movement, particularly regarding the continuous struggles against systemic racism and gender discrimination. Only in recent times has their contribution to the struggle in the realm of civil rights been underlined. In that respect, scholars and activists alike affirm that it is very important to learn the role of these women in the discourses on civil rights that at times were not only supportive but leading in their own right. 4Felicien, Bria. 2021. Septima Clark was the teacher of the civil rights movement. February 9. Accessed September 25, 2024. https://www.ajc.com/news/septima-clark-was-the-teacher-of-the-civil-rights-movement/CZSM4IT56RC4 FFMMLD7L53YLPA/.
Thus, African American women have been very instrumental in the Civil Rights Movement, passing through precarious junctions of race and gender, class, and the struggle for justice and equality. This very often-omitted kind of legacy says a lot about the period in time when women gave their voice to struggles and issues concerning social justice. Therefore, as society continues to wrestle with issues of race and gender, it is worth acknowledging the contributions of African American women in the civil rights movement as part of a broader struggle for equality and social justice.
