November 2,2005____________________________________
**>'$ o r t l a t t ò (©bsertier___________________________ Pa8eA3
Women Often Overlooked in Civil Rights Era
Rosa Park’s death
shines light on
movement
(AP) — Ella Baker. Séptima Poinsette
Clark. Fannie Lou Hamer.
They and others risked their lives and
worked tirelessly, demanding a social revo
lution — but history has often overlooked
them. They were the women o f the civil
rights movement.
Though historians now acknowledge
that women, particularly African-Ameri
cans, were pivotal in the critical battles for
racial equality, Rosa Parks’ death high
lights the fact that she was one of the very
few female civil rights figures who are
widely known. Most women in the move
ment played background roles, either by
choice or due to bias, since being a women
of color meant facing both racism and
sexism.
“ In some ways it reflects the realities of
the 1950s: There were relatively few women
sparking a mass boycott by thou
sands, mainly black women do
mestic workers who had long
filled the buses’ back seats. Im
mediately, black women activ
ists who had for years urged city
officials to integrate the buses
rallied to her cause, said Lynne
Olson, author o f “Freedom ’s
Daughters: The Unsung Hero
ines o f the Civil Rights M ove
ment from 1830 to 1970.”
The women arranged car
pools and sold cakes and pies to
raise money for alternate trans
portation. The boycott lasted
more than a year until the Supreme Court
upheld a lower court’s ruling in favor of
four black Montgomery women who had
— months before Parks — refused to
comply with bus segregation.
Though women had spearheaded that
campaign and many others, when their
efforts began to bear fruit prominent men
often took the helm, Olson said.
Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer
o f Ruleville, Miss.,
speaks to M ississippi
Freedom Democratic
Party sympathizers
outside the Capitol in
Washington, D.C. after
the House o f Represen
tatives rejected a
challenger to the 1964
election o f five M issis
sippi representatives,
in this Sept. 17, 1965
file photo.
in public leadership roles,” said Julian
Bond, acivil rights historian at the Univer
sity of Virginia and chair of the NAACP.
“So that small subset that becomes promi
nent in civil rights would tend to be men.
But that doesn't excuse the way some
women have just been written out of his
tory.”
For many, the wives of the movement’s
prominent male leaders, including Coretta
Scott King, Betty Shabazz and Myrlie
Evers Williams, were among the most vis
ible women in the struggle.
But scan historical images of the most
dramatic moments of the civil rights move
ment — protesters blasted by fire hoses
and dogs lunging at blacks — and women
and girls are everywhere.
There is a 1964 image of Mississippi
beautician Vera Piggy styling hair and
educating her customers on voter regis
tration. And there’s a 1963 photo of stu
dents at Florida A&M University, a his
torically black col lege, in which hundreds
of people, mostly women, answer court
charges for protesting segregated movie
theaters. Six of the so-called Little Rock
Nine, black teenagers whose lives were
threatened when they integrated the Ar
kansas city’s high schools in 1957, were
young women.
In 1955, Parks refused to give up her bus
seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala.,
Memorial Honors Courageous Rosa Parks
continued
Officer Robert Mazakis, a member o f Rosa Parks ’ Honor
Guard, helps Parks ’ great nephew Schuyler McCauley-Brown
with his tie as they wait with other mourners for a memorial
service in Washington, D.C.
from Front
and Sing.”
Earlier, more than 30,000 people
filed silently by her casket in the
Capitol Rotunda in hushed rever
ence, beginning Sunday night
and continuing until well past
sunrise M onday.
E ld e r ly w o m en c a r r y in g
purses, young couples holding
hands and small children in the
arms o f their parents reverently
p ro c e e d e d aro u n d the raised
wooden casket.
Many were overcome by em o
tio n . M o n ic a G rad y , 47, o f
Greenbelt, Md., was moved to tears,
she said, that Parks was “so brave
at the time without really knowing
the consequences” of her actions.
Parks, a former seamstress, be
came the first woman to lie in honor
in the Rotunda, sharing the tribute
bestowed upon Abraham Lincoln,
John F. Kennedy and other na
tional leaders. President Bush and
congressional leaders gathered for
a brief ceremony Sunday night, lis
tening as members of Baltimore’s
M organ State U niversity choir
sang “The Battle Hymn of the Re
public.”
Rep. C onyers said the c e r
e m o n y an d p u b lic v ie w in g
showed “the legacy o f Rosa Parks
is more than ju st a success for the
civil rights m ovem ent or for A fri
can-A m ericans. It means it’s a
national honor.”
At the Capitol cerem ony Sun
day, Senate chaplain Barry Black
said Parks’ courage “ignited a
m ovem ent that aroused our na
tional conscience” and served as
an exam ple o f the “pow er of fate
ful, small acts.”
Bush, who presented a wreath
but did not speak at the ceremony,
issued a proclam ation ordering
the U.S. flag to be flown at half-
staff over all public buildings
W ednesday, the day o f Parks’
funeral and burial in Detroit.
continued
on page A6
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