"FOR NJOSH ONLY"

Invisible Southern Black Women Leaders in the Civil Rights Movement: The Triple Constraints of Gender, Race, and Class Author(syf % H U Q L F H 0 F 1 D L U % D U Q H W t Source: Gender and Society, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Jun., 1993yf S S 2 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/189576 Accessed: 02-06-2017 04:29 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Gender and Society This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms INVISIBLE SOUTHERN BLACK WOMEN LEADERS IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT: The Triple Constraints of Gender, Race, and Class BERNICE McNAIR BARNETT University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign In spite oftheirperformance of highly valuable roles in the civil rights movement, southern Black women (such as Septima Poinsette Clark, McCree Harris, Shirley Sherrod, Diane Nash, Johnnie Carr, Thelma Glass, Georgia Gilmore, and JoAnn Robinsonyf U H P D L Q D F D W H J R U \ R I L Q Y L V L E O H , unsung heroes and leaders. Utilizing archival data and a subsample of personal interviews conducted with civil rights leaders, this article (1yf H [ S O R U H V W K H V S H F L I L F O H D G H U V K L S U R O H V R I % O D F k women activists; (2yf G H V F U L E H V W K H H [ S H U L H Q F H V R I V H O H F W H G % O D F N Z R P H Q D F W L Y L V W V I U R P W K H L U R Z n "standpoint"; and (3yf R I I H U V H [ S O D Q D W L R Q V I R U W K H O D F N R I U H F R J Q L W L R Q D Q G Q R Q L Q F O X V L R Q R I % O D F k women in the recognized leadership cadre of the civil rights movement. The modern southern- based struggle is most illustrative of how the interlocking systems of gender race, and class structure Black women's movement leadership and participation. Even in pre-civil war days, black [sic] women stood in the vanguard for equal rights; [sic] for freedom from slavery, for recognition of women as citizens and co-partners with men in all of life's endeavors.... However, because of the nature of American history, and particularly because of the institutions of slavery and segregation, the names and lives of black women leaders are all but unknown in American society-black as well as white. -Margaret Walker (in Sterling 1979, xviyf Even while suffering the daily indignities heaped on them by their location in the structure of society, many southern Black women were much more thanfollowers in the modern civil rights movement; many were also leaders AUTHOR'S NOTE: I gratefully acknowledge the assistance and generosity of civil rights activists who granted me an interview, gave me access to their personal papers, and in many GENDER & SOCIETY, Vol. 7 No. 2, June 1993 162-182 ? 1993 Sociologists for Women in Society 162 This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Barnett / BLACK WOMEN CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS 163 who performed a variety of roles comparable to those of Black male leaders. Although seldom recognized as leaders, these women were often the ones who initiated protest, formulated strategies and tactics, and mobilized other resources (especially money, personnel, and communication networksyf Q H F - essary for successful collective action. The diversity of their experiences is matched only by the diversity of their backgrounds. Sisters in struggle-sharecroppers, domestic and service workers, schoolteachers, college professors, housewives, beauticians, stu- dents, and office secretaries-all shed blood, sweat, and tears in the move- ment. In their homes, churches, voluntary associations, political organiza- tions, women's clubs, college campus organizations, neighborhoods, and work groups, southern Black women of differing backgrounds shared a common desire for freedom from oppression. They courageously engaged in civil rights struggles in the South, a region historically characterized by a dangerous climate of legalized bigotry, labor exploitation, sexual assault and insult, and institutionalized violence and intimidation (Bartley 1969; Clark 1962, 1986; Dollard 1937; Nichols 1976; Raines 1977; Woodward 1955; Zinn 1964yf . Although embedded within a structural context of three interlocking sys- tems of oppression-racism, sexism, and classism-modern Black women activists in communities throughout the South nevertheless performed roles that by any standard would merit their being considered "heroes" and "leaders" of the movement. However, until recently, most of these women have remained anonymous, a category of invisible, unsung heroes of one of the most revolutionary periods of modern American history. During the period of more than thirty years of scholarship since the heyday of the civil rights movement, their experiences and their leadership roles virtually have been neglected, forgotten, or considered inconsequential or of secondary importance relative to those of men.' The invisibility of modern Black women leaders and activists is in part a result of gender, race, and class biases prevalent in both the social movement literature and feminist scholarship. Social movement scholarship has focused almost exclusively on great men and elites as movement leaders (Jenkins and Perrow 1977; Oberschall 1981; Rose and Grenya 1984yf 0 R V W R I W K H O H D G H U - ship recognition and pioneering research covering the civil rights movement other ways assisted me in this ongoing research. I also am grateful to Gender & Society reviewers for helpful comments on previous drafts of this article and to Margaret Andersen for invaluable editorial advice. REPRINT REQUESTS: Bernice McNair Barnett, Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820. This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 164 GENDER & SOCIETY / June 1993 of the 1950s and early 1960s, in particular, has concentrated on the leading roles and charisma of elite male professionals within the Black community, such as ministers (McAdam 1982; Morris 1984; Piven and Cloward 1979; White 1990yf R U R Q W K H U H V R X U F H S U R Y L G L Q J U R O H R I H O L W H V X S S R U W H U V R X W V L G H W K e Black community (Jenkins and Eckert 1986; McAdam 1982; Oberschall 1981; Zald and McCarthy 1979yf 2 I W K R V H O H D G H U V Z L W K L Q W K H % O D F N F R P P X - nity, Martin Luther King, Jr., has occupied the majority of that focus (Barnett 1990a; Branch 1988; Garrow 1986; White 1987, 1990yf 7 R D O H V V H U E X W V W L O l significant degree, focus has been on three groups of Black men who can be categorized as the organization heads-positional leaders,2 the Young Turks- shock troops,3 and the revolutionaries-separatists.4 Thus, although the move- ment scholarship of sociologists typically has been critical of the "great man" theory of leadership (most forcefully promoted by Thomas Carlyleyf L W K D s nevertheless implicitly used this perspective in leadership analysis because it primarily has reported the activities and charismatic traits of male leaders. Feminist scholarship, until recently, has focused almost exclusively on the activism of white women. Although white women performed crucial roles in the civil rights movement (Blumberg 1980a, 1980b; Evans 1979; Goldstein 1978; Rothschild 1979yf % O D F N Z R P H Q L Q F R P P X Q L W L H V D Q G R U J D Q L ] D W L R Q s throughout the South and other regions were struggling during a time that some feminist scholars initially labeled the "cessation" phase and "dol- drums" for women's activism (Ferree and Hess 1985; Rupp and Taylor 1987yf . Black women and other women of color have been assumed to be uninvolved in feminist organizations or unconcerned about women's rights. However, Lerner (1979,81-82yf K D V S R L Q W H G R X W W K D W Z R P H Q V O L E H U D W L R Q P H D Q V G L I I H U H Q t things to different women: There is much to be learned concerning the relationship between the ideology of woman's place and the reality of woman's place by examining the history of Black women .... Women, as all oppressed groups, perceive their status relatively, in comparison with their own groups, with previously known con- ditions, with their own expectations. White society has long decreed that while "woman's place is in the home," Black woman's place is in the white woman's kitchen. No wonder that many Black women define their own "liberation" as being free to take care of their own homes and their own children, supported by a man with a job. (emphasis in orginalyf Indeed, the critics of the prevailing research on Black women have pointed out three major biases: (1yf D Q H J D W L Y H S U R E O H P R U L H Q W H G L P D J H W K D W V W H U H R - typically connects Black women with various "pathologies" within the fam- ily, such as female-headedness, illegitimacy, teen pregnancy, poverty, and welfarism (Barnett, Robinson, and Bailey 1984; Collins 1989; Higginbotham 1982; Scott 1982yf \f a middle-class orientation that excludes, ignores, or This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Barnett / BLACK WOMEN CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS 165 makes inconsequential the experiences of poor and working-class women, a large percentage of whom are Black (Bookman and Morgen 1988; Higginbotham 1982yf D Q G \f an apolitical-nonleadership image of Black and poor women as political passivists or as followers and organizers, rarely as movement leaders (Barnett 1989, 1990byf 7 K X V W K H P D M R U L W \ R I H [ L V W L Q g research on modem social movement leadership has neglected the crucial roles of Black women and presented the erroneous image that "all of the women are white, all of the Blacks are men" (Hull, Scott, and Smith 1982yf . Yet emerging scholarship and recent recollections are beginning to illus- trate that, far from being apolitical or inconsequential, Black women were crucial to the civil rights movement, that their personal experiences were unique as well as political, and that Black women's activism should be central to social movement scholarship (Barnett 1989, 1990b; Blumberg 1990; Crawford, Rouse, and Woods 1990; Robinson 1987yf * L G G L Q J V \f points out that Black women had a history of their own, one which reflects their distinct concerns, values and the role they have played as both Afro-Americans and women. And their unique status has had an impact on both racial and feminist values. (emphasis addedyf This article represents an ongoing effort to reconstruct American history to include the leadership roles of contemporary southern Black women in the modern civil rights movement in the United States. Specifically, the purpose of this article is threefold. First, it explores the particular leadership roles of southern Black women and men in the civil rights struggle. Second, it describes the experiences of selected Black women activists primarily from their own standpoint.6 Third, it offers explanations for the lack of recognition and noninclusion of southern Black women in the recognized leadership cadre of the civil rights movement, within which the interlocking systems of gender, race, and class structured Black women's participation. METHODS This article is based on data analyzing leadership roles performed by Black men and women during the civil rights movement from 1955 to 1968. I systematically analyzed previously published oral histories and archival data, including published works on the civil rights movement, newspapers (e.g., the New York Tmesyf D Q G W K H S H U V R Q D O S D S H U V R I P R Y H P H Q W S D U W L F L S D Q W V . Papers and other movement documents were examined at the King Center in Atlanta, Georgia; the E. D. Nixon Library in Montgomery, Alabama; the This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 166 GENDER & SOCIETY / June 1993 Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta; the Carter G. Woodson Institute for the Study of Civil Rights in Charlottesville, Virginia; the Schlesinger Library of Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the residences of civil rights activists. In addition, I conducted personal interviews with leaders and activists involved in the civil rights movement, primarily in the South during the 1950s and 1960s. Based on the archival analysis, I developed a list of activists to interview and later modified the list because of the death or the unavailability of respondents. With the aid of many respondents from the original list, I also used a modified snowball sampling technique that was invaluable in obtain- ing information from less well-known activists. Thirty-four detailed, semi- structured formal interviews plus ten informal interviews were conducted in 1987.7 Three additional informal interviews were conducted in 1988. The length of interviews averaged one hour, but some lasted three to eight hours. Interviews were conducted in homes, congressional and municipal offices, churches, law offices, a courthouse lobby following a city council meeting, and other places of work and special gatherings. This paper is based on a subsample of 36 activists interviewed (13 women and 23 menyf . Initially, women as a category of activists were not my primary focus; however, as I became enmeshed in the research, I was amazed to stumble on new information about the role of a particular Black woman or to hear about the significance of certain women from the movement leaders and activists themselves. I realized that prior accounts of the civil rights movement had left these Black women leaders invisible. As I learned more about and from these women, I found it incredible that the experiences of these moder foremothers had been so long unrecognized, not only by academia and the general public, but also by most Black Americans. BLACK WOMEN ACTIVISTS AND THEIR LEADERSHIP ROLES Leadership is multidimensional and embedded within a structural context. Thus the best approach to studying leadership in the civil rights movement is to analyze the specific roles that individuals or categories of individuals performed. For this study, I selected roles on the basis of three criteria: (1yf their relevance to research on leadership; (2yf W K H L U W K H R U H W L F D O U H O H Y D Q F H , representativeness, and appropriateness to the study of leadership in a social movement; and (3yf W K H L U W K H R U H W L F D O V L J Q L I L F D Q F H D Q G D S S U R S U L D W H Q H V V W R W K e study of leadership in the civil rights movement. On the basis of these criteria, I developed a list of 13 leadership roles (see Table 1yf D Q G D W W H P S W H G W o This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Barnett / BLACK WOMEN CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS 167 TABLE 1: Rank Order of Most Important Leadership Roles as Perceived by Civil Rights Leaders and Activists Interviewed Rank Leadership Role Total Weighted Score 1 Articulate/express concern and needs of followers 52 2 Define/set goals 25 3 Provide an ideology justifying action 23 4 Formulate tactics and strategies 14 5 Initiate action 13 6 Mobilize/persuade followers 10 7 Raise money 9 7 Serve as an example to followers and leaders 9 8 Organize/coordinate action 7 9 Control group interactions (e.g., conflictyf 6 10 Teach/educate/train followers and leaders 5 11 Ability to not alienate colleagues and followers 3 12 Lead or direct action 2 13 Generate publicity 1 13 Obtain public sympathy and support 1 determine through archival and interview data the significance of these roles as performed by Black women. Each civil rights activist was asked to review the list of roles that I had prepared and to add any other leadership roles that she or he considered important. Respondents added two roles (teach, educate, train followers and other leaders and the ability to not alienate colleagues and followersyf W R W K e list. Almost all respondents indicated that they felt my list was "very good," "excellent," or "thorough." In addition, five respondents asked to have a copy of the list to use in their lectures on the movement. Hence, although I do not contend that the list is exhaustive, I feel that it is indicative of the multiple roles that leaders (both women and menyf S H U I R U P H G L Q W K H F L Y L O U L J K W s movement. To determine the relative importance of these roles, respondents were asked to rank what they considered to be the first, second, and third most important leadership role. Roles rated as first, second, and third were given weighted scores of 3, 2, and 1, respectively. Weighted scores for each role were summed, providing a total weighted score and measure of the sample's overall ranking and perception of the relative importance of the roles. As indicated in Table 1, articulating and expressing the needs and concerns of followers was ranked the most important role of leaders-far more important than other leadership items. In order of importance, the other leadership components ranked by respondents were defining and setting goals, provid- ing an ideology, formulating strategies and tactics, initiating action, mobiliz- This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 168 GENDER & SOCIETY / June 1993 ing followers, raising money, and serving as an example. That generating publicity and public sympathy were the least significant supports Morris's (1984yf F R Q W H Q W L R Q W K D W W K H V X F F H V V R I W K H F L Y L O U L J K W V P R Y H P H Q W Z D V G X H P R U e to forces indigenous to the Black community than to external support. Within the community and local, state, and national organizations, Black women performed some of the most important of these roles. The women were also diverse in terms of age, education, and socioeconomic background. For instance, although it propelled Martin Luther King, Jr., into a position of national recognition as the leader of the "new" movement, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was nevertheless an event that was initiated and sustained by Black women active in the community (Barnett 1989; Blumberg 1990; Crawford, Rouse, and Woods 1990; Garrow 1986; Robinson 1987yf - R $ Q n Robinson, an English professor at Alabama State University, and other mostly educated women of the Women's Political Council (WPCyf S O D Q Q H d and organized the boycott. They also mobilized others by disseminating information about the boycott-mimeographing and distributing 35,000 leaflets following the arrest of Rosa Parks. With as much vigor and initiative as the middle-class women of the WPC, Georgia Gilmore, a cook and domestic worker, performed another of the most important ranked roles. To raise money to support the boycott, Gilmore single-handedly organized the Club From Nowhere, which she ingeniously named to avoid compromising white as well as Black patrons. In an interview with one of the women respondents who led the Montgomery boycott, I was told of the Club From Nowhere: The Club From Nowhere was truly something Mrs. Georgia Gilmore should be proud of. She headed this club and even lost her job working in a cafe when she started it. The club went door to door asking for donations and selling dinner plates and baked goods .... [They] made weekly reports on all the money collected from all kinds of people-Blacks and whites. Some of these people didn't want it known that they had given money to the movement, so they wouldn't give Mrs. Gilmore and the other ladies checks that could be traced, only cash. And Mrs. Gilmore made sure they didn't tell anybody who had made the donations. That's why it was called the Club From Nowhere, so that none of the people giving the money could be in the least bit accused of supporting the movement. During another interview, a respondent who was a high school teacher and one of the women leaders in the Albany Movement in South Georgia said of the roles of women educators as organizers among public school students: Many of us [Black women] were active in organizing young people-teenagers- to attend meetings and demonstrations, almost anything that had to do with This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Barnett I BLACK WOMEN CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS 169 organized action. ... We also helped organize voter registration in Albany. Although we worked closely with Dr. King, most of us were doing this long before he and SCLC came into town. Ella Baker, one who advocated participatory democracy, was not only the quintessential organizer but also a great inspiration.to those young college student leaders she advised and trained. While Baker, Daisy Bates, and Modjeska Monteith Simkins were training and organizing younger people, Septima Clark, Bernice Robinson, Dorothy Cotton, and other Black women educators were busy teaching and training older people. Had it not been for Clark and her mastery at teaching illiterate adult Blacks how to read and write, the 1965 Voting Rights Act would have been meaningless because Southern states had successfully disenfranchised the majority of the Black population by establishing gerrymandered districts, the grandfather's clause, all-white primaries, and high poll taxes and by requiring Blacks to pass literacy and citizenship tests before they were allowed to register to vote. Blackwell (1991,332yf H P S K D V L ] H V W K H G L I I L F X O W \ R I O L W H U D F \ W H V W V E H F D X V H W K H y "demanded that potential voters be able to read and recite from memory previously unspecified sections of either a state or federal constitution." Many respondents recalled Septima Clark with fondness, with respect, and with praise for her role as a teacher and organizer of adult "citizenship schools" throughout the South. One prominent male respondent, who himself was a "trainer" of civil rights field workers in the South, commented: Ah! What a human being.... There simply was no one like Septima Clark. Martin [King] knew and we all knew how courageous and how gifted this lady was.... She could talk on several intellectual levels.... As brilliant as she was, she could always get down on your level to make you understand and to make you comfortable.... Her role was essential... she taught citizenship. Two follow-up questions were used to determine how these significant roles might relate to specific leaders. The first follow-up question asked lead- ers and activists, "Whom do you consider to be the ten most important indi- vidual leaders of the civil rights movement from 1955 to 1968?"8 The responses to this question yielded three interesting, although not entirely unex- pected, results. First, without a doubt, Martin Luther King, Jr., was consid- ered by the sample to have been the most important individual leader of the movement. Second, the highest ranked leaders tended to be those who were ministers or heads and officers of the five major national rights organizations -the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACPyf , the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLCyf W K H & R Q J U H V V R f Racial Equality (COREyf W K H 6 W X G H Q W 1 R Q Y L R O H Q W & R R U G L Q D W L Q J & R P P L W W H e (SNCCyf D Q G W K H 8 U E D Q / H D J X H D Q G W K H U H I R U H P H Q 7 K L V Z D V Q R W V X U S U L V L Q g This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 170 GENDER & SOCIETY / June 1993 given that Evans (1979yf D Q G 0 F $ G D P \f found sexism tended to rele- gate Black and white women to nonexecutive positions within the organiza- tional structure of the civil rights and student movements. Although they have traditionally performed crucial roles and have been considered the "back- bone" in the church, Black women historically have not been allowed the opportunity to become ministers, deacons, or trustees-the "heads" and top decision makers in the male-dominated hierarchy of the Black Baptist church (Cone 1989; Cone and Wilmore 1979; Grant 1990; Lincoln 1974yf , Q G H H G , in her longitudinal studies of Black women in the church, Grant (1990, 190yf has observed Black women's continued subordination and has questioned ostensibly positive connotations assumed by the backbone analogy: On the surface this may appear to be a compliment, especially when one considers the function of the backbone in the human anatomy... [but] the telling portion of the word backbone is "back." It has become apparent to me that most of the ministers who use the term have reference to location rather than function. What they really mean is that women are in the "background" and should be kept there. They are really support workers. This is borne out by my observations that in many churches women are consistently given responsibil- ities in the kitchen, while men are elected or appointed to the important boards and leadership positions. While decisions and policies may be discussed in the kitchen, they are certainly not made there.... It is by considering the distinc- tion between prescribed support positions and the policymaking, leadership positions that the oppression of Black women in the Black church can be seen more clearly. Third, men were named and cited much more often than women. Of the 81 individuals who were named by respondents, 22 (27.2yb \f were women compared to 59 (72.8yb \f men. Of those women named, 19 were Black and 3 were white. Table 2 presents the names of the women cited, rank ordered by number of citations. Cutting across lines of race, ethnicity, and class, these women reflect a variety of backgrounds-teachers, college professors, cooks and domestics, secretaries, seamstresses, housewives, college students, jour- nalists, lawyers, and sharecroppers. The second follow-up question asked respondents to name the individual who most effectively performed the leadership role that she or he had considered first, second, and third most important. An effectiveness score for each leader was derived by summing the products of the frequency at which the leader was mentioned in association with each of the three leadership roles selected as most important by respondents and the weight assigned to the role based on its overall ranking (see Table 1yf 5 R O H V U D Q N H G D V I L U V W , second, third, . . . thirteenth in the overall respondent rankings were given weights of 13, 12, 11,... 1.5, respectively. Two roles having the same rank This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Barnett / BLACK WOMEN CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS 171 TABLE 2: Women Named among the Most Important Leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, 1955-1968, Rank Ordered by Number of Respondent Citationsa Rank Cited Leader Number of Citations 7 Rosa Parksb 6 8 JoAnn Robinson 5 9 Ella Baker 4 10 Mary Francis Burks 3 10 Septima Poinsette Clark 3 10 Georgia Gilmore 3 11 Daisy Bates 2 11 Dorothy Cotton 2 11 Erna Dungee 2 11 Virginia Durrc 2 11 Dorothy Height 2 11 Diane Nash 2 11 Inez Ricks 2 12 Ann Braden 1 12 Johnnie Carr 1 12 Marie Foster 1 12 Thelma Glass 1 12 Hazel Gregory 1 12 Fannie Lou Hamer 1 12 Viola Liuzo 1 12 Constance Baker Motley 1 12 Idessa Redding 1 a. Because six respondents did not answer this question, these results are based on a sample size of 30 respondents, some of whom named fewer than ten persons. The list represents only the women who were named and does not contain the names of the many (59yf P H Q Z K R Z H U H Q D P H G . b. Parks, Gilmore, Ricks, Hamer, and perhaps a few other women on the list would be considered working-class, if not poor, women. Gilmore, Ricks, and Carr are three of the most invisible of the many unsung heroines of the movement. Yet these invisible Black women struggled against injustices just as the middle-class more privileged, and educated Black women, such as Clark, Robinson, and Bates. c. Although most Black women activists faced the triple constraints of race, gender, and class, it is important to point out that civil rights activism cut across lines of class, race, and gender. For example, Braden, Durr, and Liuzo were white women whose roles were considered significant, as evidenced by their being named by this sample of Black leaders interviewed. were given weights falling at the midpoint of the upper and lower weights. In instances when two leaders were named as most effectively performing a single role, the frequency was counted as 0.5 for each leader. In the two instances when a respondent named three leaders for most effective perfor- mance of a single role, the frequency was counted as 1 for the three-person This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 172 GENDER & SOCIETY / June 1993 TABLE 3: Leaders Rank Ordered by Frequency of Respondent Association with Most Effective Performance of Roles Considered Most Important Rank Leader Total Score 1 Martin Luther King, Jr. 173.0 2 Ralph David Abemathy 88.0 3 Charles Sherrod 49.0 4 Local leaders 37.5 5 Presidents of organizations 25.0 6 Women 23.0 7 E.J. Grant 21.0 8 E. D. Nixon 20.0 9 Joseph Lowery 19.5 10 Martin Luther King, Sr. 13.0 11 Hosea Williams 12.0 11 James Bevel 12.0 12 Vernon Johns 10.0 12 SNCC workers 10.0 12 NAACP lawyers 10.0 13 James Lawson 9.0 14 Georgia Gilmore 7.5 14 JoAnn Robinson/Mary Fair Burks/Sadie Brooks 7.5 14 Charles Jones/Slater King/Cordell Reagon 7.5 15 Rufus Lewis 5.0 group. Based on frequency of association with performance of ranked roles, total leader scores were obtained and resulted in the leader rankings presented in Table 3.9 With a combined score of 739, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other male leaders overwhelmingly were ranked higher than women, whose com- bined score was only 38. The two roles that were associated with most effective performance by women cited as a group and as individuals were mobilizing or persuading followers and raising money. Interestingly, al- though fund-raising was Georgia Gilmore's primary role, JoAnn Robinson and other Women's Political Council members who were Montgomery Bus Boycott's key planners, strategists, and organizers were cited only for their fund-raising role in the movement. Perhaps respondents also considered these specific individual women when they cited "local leaders," "presidents of organizations," "SNCC workers," and "NAACP lawyers." These findings support my contention that leadership is multidimensional; however, they also indicate that those role dimensions are differentially valued or recognized and that those differences are gender linked. For in- stance, the leadership role ranked the most important (articulating and ex- This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Barnett / BLACK WOMEN CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS 173 pressing concerns of followersyf Z D V G H I D F W R D P D O H U R O H L Q E R W K % O D F N D Q d white communities in the South. In terms of opportunities to perform this role, King and most other male leaders had a double advantage of being a Black minister who headed a church as well as a major civil rights organiza- tion. Typically, positional leaders and spokespersons were, in fact, males and may have been more highly respected not only by Black and white supporters but also by white opposition. Indeed, in the Southern social structure of the 1950s, women were expected to adhere to the adage that they should be seen, not heard, and in Southern Baptist churches women's place was "in the pew" and "out of the pulpit" (Grant 1990yf + R Z H Y H U W K L V G R H V Q R W H [ S O D L Q Z K y Black women activists who were also respected organizational heads, such as Robinson and Bates, were not recognized as were their male counterparts. Hence, although they were extremely active in their professions and organi- zations and were indispensable to the movement, Black women's experi- ences were unique, unlike those of white women activists or Black men, because they were structured by triple constraints of gender, race, and class. CONSTRAINTS OF GENDER, RACE, AND CLASS Respondents were asked to elaborate on their response to this question: "Do you think the leadership roles performed by female leaders of the movement are as widely known or recognized as those of male leaders?" Every respondent, including the men, interviewed replied no. Respondent comments, as well as the archival data, illustrate how gender, race, and class are inextricably linked and make Black women's experiences in social movement participation and leadership comprise "a history of their own." Economic and Family Constraints Some respondents cited family responsibilities and economic concerns as two interconnected constraints on Black women's leadership. One respon- dent said: Many male leaders were really free to make contacts and relay information. Female leaders, many of whom were public school teachers, were constrained by family roles and more so by their jobs and the school superintendent. If he found out we were involved in any way, the superintendent could fire any of us any time he wanted to. Not only were Black women in the South constrained by their jobs as public school teachers, but they were constrained as well by theirjobs as domestics This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 174 GENDER & SOCIETY / June 1993 in white homes and public buildings. The Southern Black male minister, perhaps the traditional counterpart to the Black female schoolteacher, gen- erally did not have the same constraints on him. He was not as economically vulnerable as his male counterpart or a domestic worker, such as Georgia Gilmore. He generally had to answer only to his Black congregation, not to the white school superintendent or the white mistress or master of the house. As Morris (1984yf L O O X V W U D W H G W K H P L Q L V W H U K D G U H O D W L Y H M R E V H F X U L W \ . One respondent involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott recalled of JoAnn Robinson's role in spite of her job vulnerability: JoAnn could have been fired from her job at the college [Alabama State University].... Most of us [professors] had families to support and had to be careful about being openly involved.... JoAnn was something else ... so determined . . . didn't even seem to be afraid if they [Black as well as white administrators] found out.... Hah! She used the mimeograph machines in the college to run off leaflets about the boycott! Robinson and most other Black women professors involved in the boycott eventually were forced to resign from their positions at the university. Economic vulnerability cut across socioeconomic class lines. When Georgia Gilmore's employer learned of her activism, she was fired from her job as a cook and blacklisted from other jobs in Montgomery. However, Gilmore was undaunted and continued her fund-raising activities by cooking and baking goods in her home, selling the items door-to-door, and then turning over all monies to the Montgomery Improvement Association, the boycott's male-dominated organizing unit. McCree Harris, a public school teacher, organized voter registration marches and Black high school and college students in Albany, Georgia. Harris, Bernice Reagon, and Shirley Sherrod took the initiative in the day-to-day fight for civil rights in the heart of Dixie. Harris and Sherrod risked losing their jobs just as Reagon, Diane Nash, and other college student activists placed their future livelihoods in jeopardy when they were jailed or suspended from college for leading protest campaigns. In spite of economic retaliations, however, Black women continued their activism. When I asked one veteran leader why she refused to give up her membership in the NAACP and risk losing her more than thirty years' teaching retirement benefits, she described how she felt the day she met with the white male school superintendent who had summoned her to his office: I looked him straight in the eye and asked him: "Did any body tell you what color suit to wear when you got up this morning?" He said "No" in astonish- ment at my question ..... So I told him I was not going to allow him or anyone else to tell me I could not be a member of the NAACP.... If I allowed them This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Barnett / BLACK WOMEN CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS 175 to do that, then I was giving them the right to tell me where to eat, what I should eat, what to wear. Patriarchy in Black and White Patriarchy was particularly prevalent in the South and structured white women's experiences as well as those of Black women. For instance, one respondent who led voter registration drives and whose husband was one of the most highly recognized SNCC leaders in the community, indicated that traditional gender stratification within Black society was a possible explana- tion for the neglect of women's roles: When you're dealing with Black men and women and the fragile position of Black males, you can expect that Black women, even though they might do all the work, will not be recognized as doing the work or leading anything.... In the South, women still look to men as leaders when women are actually doing the work. ... A lot of this comes from traditions of the church and the male minister as the leader, the person whom you're supposed to obey. The move- ment was no different than anything else. Women obeyed and supported their husbands, looked up to them as leaders, and didn't take any credit even if it was offered.... Black women especially had to work hard, but never ever threaten the fragile position of their Black men. They still have to do this. (emphasis in originalyf Another veteran civil rights leader interviewed suggested an explanation beyond traditional gender-role differences and expectations within the Black community and within the South. She pointed to the general problem of patriarchy that historically has constrained all women in American society: When Europeans came to America, women had to take a back seat to males. . . . Men didn't do the work that women did and yet they got all the praises. This European patriarchal influence is evident not just among Blacks but also among Whites.... Women don't get credit and praised for the work they do because that's how the white European tradition sets things up. One woman who was interviewed mentioned that Black women activists encountered sexism when they tried to get funding from businesses, banks, and local governments. She indicated that many of the community-based self-help projects that she organized and directed were often not funded because she was a woman; those from whom she solicited funds told her so in both overt and subtle ways. Although Daisy Bates and Ella Baker both held key positions in established civil rights organizations, each received little recognition as the "movement leaders" within the Black community, and both paid an economic price for their leadership roles. Bates, head of Little Rock's NAACP, lost the newspaper owned by her and her husband This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 176 GENDER & SOCIETY / June 1993 (Bates 1962yf % H F D X V H R I V H [ L V P Z L W K L Q W K H P R Y H P H Q W % D N H U Z D V Q H Y H r given a permanent position in SCLC or a salary comparable to the man who replaced her. Yet, one well-known male respondent, who held key leadership positions in both CORE and SCLC, recalled during our interview: You take women like Ella Baker, they were indispensable.... Besides Dr. King, she was one of my heroes. She had a way with us [young Black students].... We knew she cared and she understood that we didn't want any compromises. Baker, as Payne (1989yf K D V S R L Q W H G R X W K D G D G L I I H U H Q W V W \ O H D Q G F R Q F H S - tion of leadership, one that contrasted sharply with that of the Black Baptist ministers and other male organizations' heads. Advocating decentralized leadership and believing in participatory democracy, Baker and perhaps many other Black women who desired or felt compelled to work behind the scenes did not want to be leaders in the traditional sense of public spokes- person or central figure. Baker once said of her style (in Cantarow and O'Malley 1980, 69-72yf : You didn't see me on television, you didn't see news stories about me. The kind of role that I tried to play was to pick up the pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization would come.... I had no ambition to be in the leadership. I was only interested in seeing that a leadership had the chance to develop. In fact, King and other heads of the top organizations resented Baker's in- sistence that the college students whom she organized to form SNCC remain autonomous from the established organizations and have no elitist leadership structure (Morris 1984; Garrow 1986yf ) X Q G D P H Q W D O G L I I H U H Q F H V L Q F R Q F H S - tions of leadership are also reflected in scholarship. In his study of women in the Mississippi Delta, for instance, Payne (1990yf D U J X H V W K D W P H Q O H G E X t women organized" (p. 158yf , Q U H V S R Q V H , F R Q W H Q G W K D W Z H Q H H G W R U H W K L Q k the traditional notion of leadership, for organizing is one important leadership role, as the data here have illustrated. The organizing activities of Baker and other Black women, especially working-class women at the grass-roots level, should be considered as valid leadership roles. Baker's loss of her SCLC job after so much hard work may have been a consequence of the gender- and class-linked differences in role valuation and recognition. Baker's replacement also may have been a consequence of the tendency for women to be the initiators and to assume leadership roles in the early phase of revolutionary protest (which is "unstructured," "emergent," and "dangerous"yf D Q G I R U P H Q W R W D N H R Y H U D Q G D V V X P H S R V L W L R Q V R I O H D G H U V K L p during the later phase of the protest. According to Blumberg (1990yf L n revolutionary conditions, there is a shortage of men and less competition for This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Barnett / BLACK WOMEN CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS 177 leadership roles, making it "possible and even necessary for women to act in ways usually closed to them, to take the initiative, or to manipulate their traditional gender definitions to fool the enemy" (p. 135yf & H U W D L Q O \ W K H 5 Montgomery Bus Boycott and the 1957 Little Rock school integration cases support this. CONCLUSIONS Black women in their homes, churches, social clubs, organizations, and communities throughout the South performed valuable leadership roles during the modern civil rights movement in the United States. Although race, gender, and class constraints generally prohibited their being the recognized articulators, spokespersons, and media favorites, these women did perform a multiplicity of significant leadership roles, such as the initiation and organization of action, the formulation of tactics, and the provision of crucial resources (e.g., money, communication channels, personnelyf Q H F H V V D U \ W o sustain the movement. Sisters in struggle, they were empowered through their activism. The women briefly mentioned in this article are only a few examples of the Black women who were politically active in their communities and struggled for civil rights. In countless ways, Black women who lived and worked in the South in the 1950s and 1960s led the way in the fight against oppression, in spite of and because of their race, gender, and class. The blood, sweat, and tears that they shed generated protest and activism by other disadvantaged groups-women, farm workers, gays and lesbians, the hand- icapped, welfare rights activists-all of whom have been in profound ways the beneficiaries of the civil rights movement. The roles that they performed, whether at the grass-roots level or behind the scenes, represent profiles in courage and suggest that they were leaders in their communities, leaders in the day-to-day fight against various forms of oppression, and leaders in the modern civil rights movement. However, further systematic research is needed to answer several ques- tions: How did the personal-political experiences of women leaders differ from those of male leaders in the civil rights movement? What gender, race, and class differences existed in opportunities for as well as constraints on the performance of leadership roles? What were the significant roles of working-class Black women (such as Johnnie Carr, Inez Ricks, and Georgia Gilmoreyf " : K D W Z H U H W K H Q H J O H F W H G U R O H V R I % O D F N Z R P H Q S U R I H V V L R Q - als, especially lawyers (such as Constance Baker Motley, Marian Wright This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 178 GENDER & SOCIETY / June 1993 Edleman, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Gloria Richardsonyf D Q G H G X F D W R U s (such as Septima Clark, Dorothy Cotton, Modjeska Monteith Simkins, and Bernice Robinsonyf " + R Z Z D V W K H D F W L Y L V P R I % O D F N Z R P H Q O D Z \ H U V D Q d educators facilitated or constrained by their professions and what impact did their activism have on their careers? Answering these questions will be a step toward making Black women central to movement scholarship and a way of ensuring that they will not remain invisible, unsung leaders in the civil rights movement. NOTES 1. To be sure, the roles of a few antebellum and early Black women activists, such as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Mary Church Terrell, Ida Wells, and Mary McLeod Bethune, are generally known; however, with the exception of Rosa Parks and perhaps Fannie Lou Hamer, the names and roles of most contemporary Black women who initiated, organized, and sustained the modem civil rights movement in the South during the 1950s and 1960s are not. The recent Crawford, Rouse, and Woods (1990yf H G L W H G Y R O X P H L V D Q H [ F H S W L R Q W R W K H S U H Y D L O L Q J Q H J O H F W R f these invisible women. 2. Organization heads-positional leaders included King as well as Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, James Farmer, James Forman, Ralph Abernathy, Hosea Williams, Joseph Lowery, and other "establishment"-oriented leaders. These positional leaders were typically ministers who headed Black churches or the chief executive officers in the largest civil rights organizations, such as the NAACP, CORE, SCLC, the National Urban League, and SNCC. However, nothing approaching a comparable amount of attention has been given to the Black women activists who served as the backbone of the churches and who often held key positions in major organizations, such as Daisy Bates, who headed Little Rock's NAACP chapter and led the Little Rock Nine school integration in 1957; or Ella Baker, who was executive director of SCLC and who almost single-handedly organized SCLC's Atlanta office as well as SNCC in 1960; or Ruby Doris Robinson, who was executive secretary of SNCC in the 1960s. 3. Young Turks-shock troops were primarily idealistic, educated, highly motivated, and often impatient college students, such as John Lewis, Julian Bond, Bob Moses, James Bevel, and Stokely Carmichael. They were typically members of campus fraternities and student govern- ment associations as well as youth divisions of the NAACP, SNCC, and CORE (McAdam 1982; Morris 1984; Zinn 1965yf + R Z H Y H U U H O D W L Y H O \ O L W W O H U H F R J Q L W L R Q K D V E H H Q J L Y H Q W R W K H Z R P H n student leaders, such as Diane Nash, who led the Nashville sit-ins and was elected head of the central committee of the Nashville Student Movement, and Bernice Johnson Reagon, whose songs lifted the spirits of those involved in the Albany Movement in Georgia (Barnett 1989, 1990byf . 4. Revolutionaries-separatists included heads and members of organizations such as the Black Panther party and Black Muslims as well as CORE and SNCC after the mid-1960s, which advocated revolution, racial separatism, or armed self-defense. Although much has been written by and about H. Rap Brown, Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton, and Malcolm X, relatively little attention has been focused on the roles and experiences of women revolutionaries, such as Kathleen Cleaver, who was an officer in the Black Panther party, or Angela Davis, whose This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Barnett / BLACK WOMEN CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS 179 significance has been obscured, denigrated, or minimized by sensationalized media portrayals of her involvement in a "love relationship" that resulted in a courtroom shootout. 5. Franklin and Meier (1982yf L Q F O X G H R Q O \ W K U H H Z R P H Q % H W K X Q H : H O O V D Q G 6 W D X S H U V \f in their analysis of fifteen "Black leaders of the twentieth century." White does not include any woman in his 1987 studies of Black leadership in America from 1895 to 1968 or in his 1990 studies of Black leadership in America from Booker T. Washington to Jesse Jackson. Reflecting a narrow and masculinized conception of leadership and neglecting the multidimensionality of leadership, Payne (1990yf D U J X H V L Q D Q R W K H U Z L V H L Q V L J K W I X O H V V D \ W K D W % O D F N P H Q O H G E X W Z R P H n organized" in the Mississippi civil rights struggle. 6. Hine (1986yf D Q G & R O O L Q V \f demonstrate the value of understanding the historical experiences of Black women through their own voices and ways of knowing. 7. The names of respondents are not used in this article because they were promised anonymity. 8. Caution should be exercised in interpreting the results of responses to this question. Several respondents indicated that naming individuals would be "impossible" for them to do without leaving out someone, that it was an "academic question" that they did not care to try to answer, and that it would be an "injustice" to name just ten individuals because there were so many. Although one respondent proceeded to name individuals, he prefaced his list by indicating that the most important leaders of the movement really were "not individuals but groups of individuals," such as the staffs of organizations like SNCC, SCLC, and the NAACP. In answer to another question, one respondent indicated that "women" performed what he considered to have been the most important leadership roles. In addition, some of the respondents who did answer this question named fewer than ten individuals. 9. 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Bearing the cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: William Morrow. Giddings, Paula. 1984. When and where I enter. New York: Harper & Row. Goldstein, Rhoda Lois. 1978. Wife-husband companionship in a social movement. International Journal of Sociology of the Family 8:101-10. Grant, Jacquelyn. 1990. Black theology and the Black woman. In Black male-female relation- ships, edited by Delores P. Aldridge. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt. Higginbotham, Elizabeth. 1982. Two representative issues in contemporary sociological work on Black women. In All the women are white, all the Blacks are men, but some of us are brave: Black women's studies, edited by Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, and Barbara Smith. Old Westbury, NY: Feminist Press. Hine, Darlene Clark. 1986. Lifting the veil, shattering the silence: Black women's history in slavery and freedom. In The state of Afro-American history, edited by Darlene Clark Hine. 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Old Westbury, NY: Feminist Press. Sterling, Dorothy. 1979. Blackforemothers: Three lives. Old Westbury, NY: Feminist Press. White, John. 1987. Black leadership in America, 1895-1968. New York: Longman. . 1990. Black leadership in America, from Booker T Washington to Jesse Jackson. New York: Longman. Woodward, C. Vann. 1955. The strange career of Jim Crow. New York: Oxford University Press. Zald, Mayer N., and John B. McCarthy, eds. 1979. The dynamics of social movements. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop. Zinn, Howard. 1964. The southern mystique. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. . 1965. SNCC: The new abolitionists. 2d ed. Boston: Beacon. This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 182 GENDER & SOCIETY / June 1993 PAPER COLLECTIONS E. D. Nixon Papers, E. D. Nixon Library, Montgomery, AL. Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, King Center, Atlanta, GA. Papers of Septima Clark, Charleston, SC. Papers of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for the Study of Civil Rights, Charlottesville, VA. Papers of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Atlanta, GA. Papers of the Women's History Collection and of the Black Women's Oral History Project of the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, Cambridge, MA. Bernice McNair Barnett is a sociologist in Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Using archives and personal interviews, she is working on a book that analyzes the unique experiences, leadership roles, strategies, and orga- nizational modes of Black women civil rights activists, especially educators, lawyers, and working-class women. Her research broadens conceptualization of and refocuses attention on leadership in social movement scholarship. This content downloaded from 128.228.0.61 on Fri, 02 Jun 2017 04:29:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms