Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
53
result(s) for
"African American women civil rights workers History 20th century Biography."
Sort by:
Lighting the fires of freedom : African American women in the civil rights movement
\"Through wide-ranging conversations with nine African American women, several now in their nineties with decades of untold stories, we hear what ignited and fueled their activism, as Bell vividly captures their inspiring voices\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
A Voice That Could Stir an Army
A sharecropper, a warrior, and a truth-telling prophet, Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) stands as a powerful symbol not only of the 1960s black freedom movement, but also of the enduring human struggle against oppression.A Voice That Could Stir an Armyis a rhetorical biography that tells the story of Hamer's life by focusing on how she employed symbols-- images, words, and even material objects such as the ballot, food, and clothing--to construct persuasive public personae, to influence audiences, and to effect social change.
Drawing upon dozens of newly recovered Hamer texts and recent interviews with Hamer's friends, family, and fellow activists, Maegan Parker Brooks moves chronologically through Hamer's life. Brooks recounts Hamer's early influences, her intersection with the black freedom movement, and her rise to prominence at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Brooks also considers Hamer's lesser-known contributions to the fight against poverty and to feminist politics before analyzing how Hamer is remembered posthumously. The book concludes by emphasizing what remains rhetorical about Hamer's biography, using the 2012 statue and museum dedication in Hamer's hometown of Ruleville, Mississippi, to examine the larger social, political, and historiographical implications of her legacy.
The sustained consideration of Hamer's wide-ranging use of symbols and the reconstruction of her legacy provided within the pages ofA Voice That Could Stir an Armyenrich understanding of this key historical figure. This book also demonstrates how rhetorical analysis complements historical reconstruction to explain the dynamics of how social movements actually operate.
eBook
Thyra J. Edwards : Black activist in the global freedom struggle
Annotation In 1938, a black newspaper in Houston paid front-page tribute to Thyra J. Edwards as the embodiment of THE SPIRIT OF AFRAMERICAN WOMANHOOD. Edwards was a world lecturer, journalist, social worker, labor organizer, womens rights advocate, and civil rights activistan undeniably important figure in the social struggles of the first half of the twentieth century. She experienced international prominence throughout much of her life, from the early 1930s to her death in 1953, but has received little attention from historians in years since. Gregg AndrewssThyra J. Edwards: Black Activist in the Global Freedom Struggleis the first book-length biographical study of this remarkable, historically significant woman. Edwards, granddaughter of runaway slaves, grew up in Jim Crowera Houston and started her career there as a teacher. She moved to Gary, Indiana, and Chicago as a social worker, then to New York as a journalist, and later became involved with the Communist Party, attracted by its stance on race and labor. She was mentored by famed civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph, who became her special friend and led her to pursue her education. She obtained scholarships to college, and after several years of study in the U.S. and then in Denmark, she became a womens labor organizer and a union publicist.In the 1930s and 1940s, she wrote about international events for black newspapers, traveling to Europe, Mexico, and the Soviet Union and presenting an anti-imperialist critique of world affairs to her readers. Edwardss involvement with the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War, her work in a Jewish refugee settlement in Italy, and her activities with U.S. communists drew the attention of the FBI. She was harassed by government intelligence organizations until she died at the age of just fifty-five. Edwards contributed as much to the radical foundations of the modern civil rights movements as any other woman of her time.This fascinating new biographydetails Thyra Edwardss lifelong journey and myriad achievements, describing both her personal and professional sides and the many ways they intertwined. Gregg Andrews used Edwardss official FBI filealong with her personal papers, published articles, and civil rights manuscript collectionsto present a complete portrait of this noteworthy activist. An engaging volume for the historian as well as the general reader,Thyra J. Edwardsexplores the complete domestic and international impact of her life and actions.
Book
She Can Bring Us Home
Long before it became the slogan of the presidential campaign for Barack Obama, Dorothy Ferebee (1898-1980) lived by the motto YES, WE CAN. An African American obstetrician and civil rights activist from Washington DC, she was descended from lawyers, journalists, politicians, and a judge. At a time when African Americans faced Jim Crow segregation, desperate poverty, and lynch mobs, she advised presidents on civil rights and assisted foreign governments on public health issues. Though articulate, visionary, talented, and skillful at managing her publicity, she was also tragically flawed.
Ferebee was president of the Alpha Kappa Alpha black service sorority and later became the president of the powerful National Council of Negro Women in the nascent civil rights era. She stood up to gun-toting plantation owners to bring health care to sharecroppers through her Mississippi Health Project during the Great Depression.
A household name in black America for forty years, Ferebee was also the media darling of the thriving black press. Ironically, her fame and relevance faded as African Americans achieved the political power for which she had fought. InShe Can Bring Us Home, Diane Kiesel tells Ferebee's extraordinary story of struggle and personal sacrifice to a new generation.
eBook
A forgotten sisterhood
Emerging from the darkness of the slave era and Reconstruction, black activist women Lucy Craft Laney, Mary McLeod Bethune, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, and Nannie Helen Burroughs founded schools aimed at liberating African-American youth from disadvantaged futures in the segregated and decidedly unequal South.
eBook
Voice of freedom : Fannie Lou Hamer : spirit of the civil rights movement
A collage-illustrated collection of poems and spirituals inspired by the life and work of civil rights advocate Fannie Lou Hamer.
Book
Women and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965
Historians have long agreed that women--black and white--were instrumental in shaping the civil rights movement. Until recently, though, such claims have not been supported by easily accessed texts of speeches and addresses. With this first-of-its-kind anthology, Davis W. Houck and David E. Dixon present thirty-nine full-text addresses by women who spoke out while the struggle was at its most intense.
Beginning with the Brown decision in 1954 and extending through the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the editors chronicle the unique and important rhetorical contributions made by such well-known activists as Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Daisy Bates, Lillian Smith, Mamie Till-Mobley, Lorraine Hansberry, Dorothy Height, and Rosa Parks. They also include speeches from lesser-known but influential leaders such as Della Sullins, Marie Foster, Johnnie Carr, Jane Schutt, and Barbara Posey.
Nearly every speech was discovered in local, regional, or national archives, and many are published or transcribed from audiotape here for the first time. Houck and Dixon introduce each speaker and occasion with a headnote highlighting key biographical and background details. The editors also provide a general introduction that places these public addresses in context.Women and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965gives voice to stalwarts whose passionate orations were vital to every phase of a movement that changed America.
eBook
Freedom faith : the womanist vision of Prathia Hall
\"Freedom Faith is the first critical biography of Rev. Dr. Prathia Laura Ann Hall (1940-2002), a leader in the Civil Rights Movement whose story has not yet been told. Hall's 'freedom faith' was the belief that God created humans to be free and assists and equips those who work for freedom. Phrased more colloquially, Hall defined freedom faith as: 'This sense that I'm not a nigger, I'm not a gal, not a boy. I'm God's child. It may cost me my job, it may cost me my life, but I want to be free. So I'm going to go down to the courthouse, I'm going to sign my name. I'm going to trust God to take me there...and bring me back. That's freedom faith.' Freedom faith was the central concept of Hall's theology, and this study examines her life and philosophy, particularly through the lens of her civil rights activism, her teaching career, and her ministry as a womanist preacher. Moving through the course of her life, Freedom Faith focuses on her intellectual and theological development, and her radiating influence on such figures as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Alice Walker. Hall was one of the first women ordained in the American Baptist Association, was the pastor of Mt. Sharon Baptist Church in Philadelphia, and in later life joined the faculty at the Boston University School of Theology as the Martin Luther King Chair in Social Ethics. In all of these roles, Hall was a pioneer, fusing rigorous feminist thought with Christian ethics and visions of social justice\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Freedom's teacher
In the mid-1950s, Septima Poinsette Clark (1898-1987), a former public school teacher, developed a citizenship training program that enabled thousands of African Americans to register to vote and then to link the power of the ballot to concrete strategies for individual and communal empowerment. In this vibrantly written biography, Katherine Charron demonstrates Clark's crucial role--and the role of many black women teachers--in making education a cornerstone of the twentieth-century freedom struggle. Using Clark's life as a lens, Charron sheds valuable new light on southern black women's activism in national, state, and judicial politics, from the Progressive Era to the civil rights movement and beyond.
eBook