The Role Of African American Women In The Civil Rights Movement

African American women have played a significant role throughout history in the ongoing struggle for freedom and equality. Beginning with abolitionist movements, struggles for fair suffrage, improvement of race relations, and educational facilities, they have been an unrelenting force in promoting equal justice for all. Yet this mighty force has rarely been recognized among studies and history books. It has not been until recently that African American women’s accomplishments became an area of concentration and their efforts recognized as a hand that not only advocated change, but also led the movement for social improvement. This pattern of discrediting the works of African American females was even carried over to the Civil Rights Era. During
They were overshadowed by the publically recognized leaders and lost within the masses of the movement. Historic figure Martin Luther King Jr. is an example of how this played out. During the less than 13 years of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership of the modern American Civil Rights Movement, African Americans achieved more progress toward racial equality in America than ever seen before. He was truly and unquestionably the backbone of the civil rights. Under him, men and women united to reform America. His campaigns and organizations sought to unify all of the African American community under one goal. Black women, like black men, were foot soldiers in sit-ins, pray-ins, and stand-in protests. The focus was on the collective movement; therefore there was hardly any recognition in how individuals worked towards that goal. The work of a woman was seen as the work of a fellow activist, and though this concept was equalizing, it made the accomplishment as a women less distinguishable. As Martin Luther King said himself in his book, Why We Can’t Wait , “ We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” It was the overarching collectivism that made it impossible for the African American women find her own ways to stand out and
The Black Panther Party was at its height in the late 1960’s to early 1970’s. African American men and women fought to have their voices heard. And unlike the previous strategies in the early fight for civil rights, they aggressively promoted black culture and individualism. African American women were finding new ways to embrace their culture; and the concept of ‘black beauty’ stimulated the idea of their individuality and their importance within society. After the movement for racial equality came to its close, a second feminist movement gave way in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The women’s movement during this time expanded the presence of the African American’s women’s consciousness in society and fostered what has been termed as “ the black women’s literary renaissance”. A variety of literary, cultural, and political developments exploded throughout America. Autobiographies/ biographies like Angela Davis’s Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974), and fictional works by Toni Morrison and Alice Walker (most famous for The Color Purple) sought to emulate the suffering and inner strength of the African American woman. This outpouring of creative energy by African American women, especially in fiction, helped foster a climate for explorations of race and gender. A climate that inspired both historians and activists to reevaluate the role African-American women who participated in the Civil Rights