FEMALE INVISIBLE GIANTS- Dr Lana Walton
National Women’s Month is an opportunity to honor and celebrate women’s historic achievements of all races. One of the Civil Rights movement's problems confronting blacks in the deep south during the 1960’s was their exclusion on racial grounds from the American mainstream. It was quite a challenge to be able to mobilize support for this movement. There were women of varying races that supported the Civil Rights Movement.
This month, I first want to honor Black women of the Civil Rights Movement who are often referred to as “the invisible giants.” Highlighting a few of these women that many people don't know much about is the thing to do. I share this narrative because of the picture painted of these brave women in a story told to me back in 2002 by a woman who was there to witness the Civil Rights Movement unfold. She was a teenager at that time. Her very words were that "Women led the movement." "Women fought the movement." "Women won the movement." "They were bad!" I found her story to be true because at that time I'd just completed a rigorous semester of the Civil Rights Movement in an Ethnic Studies Class at the University of California.
Women were in the background of Brown vs Board of Education, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Desegregation, Sit ins, Freedom rides, Birmingham troubles, and voting battle. In this article, I bring attention to the voting rights struggle. Like many struggles throughout history, the Civil Rights Movement was fought primarily by women, and children in their own way. During the Civil Rights Movement, since women were the ones who made less money, they normally stayed home while the husbands went to work. These women would meet every day at a church. However, the media gave very little attention to them. When Dr. King was in town, there were all sorts of media coverage. Little be known that people had been marching in Selma for years preceding Dr. King's arrival. The boycott in Montgomery, however, was not already organized before his coming.
The movement in Selma was led by Sam and Amelia Boynton who were farm agents. They had been trying to register people to vote since the early 1940’s. They had formed an organization called “The Dallas County Voters League. The first mass meeting to organize for the right to vote was held on the day of Sam Bowington's death. Amelia became the person who led the movement. She organized the Dallas County and kept things together even after Sam died. Mrs. Boynton and the league invited Dr. King to Selma, and when he came, the rest was history. It is said that though Dr. King’s coming to Selma started the painting of a picture to the world, his arrival was actually the climax period. Prior to his coming there was a whole mountain to climb, and according to this participant who shared the story, it was women who climbed it.
Marie Foster who went out in the streets registering people to vote, was beaten on the bridge on Bloody Sunday, yet walked every step of the way from Selma to Montgomery. There was Annie Lee Cooper who said she had the right to vote in Kentucky and could not understand the law in Alabama. Therefore, she took her card to the courthouse in Montgomery to vote, and was kicked out. She immediately worked on the marches, and didn’t stop until she had the right to vote.
Rose White, was a teenager who was not non-violent. When attacked, she hit back. There was Alice West, a name we will never hear except at the Museum in Montgomery that tells her contribution. She cooked, and her house was the second freedom house. Though she had 12 children, it was said that people could always get something to eat at her house. Alice was making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while others strategized how to win the Civil Rights battle. She sometimes fixed huge pots of grits for lunch because that was all she had. But it kept civil rights workers from being hungry.
Indeed there were many other famous women that played a great part in the Civil Rights Movement. Again, my intent here is to shine light on some who are not so well known. My last tribute is to Viola Liuzzo, a white civil rights activist woman, who at age 39 was killed by the Klan in Alabama in 1965. Viola had left her family in Detroit to drive to Alabama to help the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with registering Black voters. After seeing the events on television where blacks were beaten badly at what came to be known as "Bloody Sunday," Viola decided to go protest. She was a wife and mother of five children. During my trip to the south, I was privileged to visit the marker placed where Viola Liuzzo was shot on Highway 80.