Five women who played an important role in the civil right movement
Today we are celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as well as the many women who have played key roles in the fight against racial economic and gender inequalities. These people paved both the way for the passages of the Civil Rights Act and the Nonviolent Marches. Civil Rights Act 1964 and the Voting Rights Act 1965. Here are five of those women who helped champion King’s mission of social justice and peace.
CORETTA SCOTT KING — a partner in peace
Coretta Scott As a college student in Ohio, I was the first to join the civil rights movement. While attending the New England Conservatory of Music, she met Boston University student Martin Luther King Jr. By 1954, the two had married and moved to Montgomery, Ala. “I was married to my husband, but I also became married to the cause. It was my cause and that’s the way I felt about it,” Coretta Scott King told the American Academy of Achievement In a 2004 interview. King traveled the globe with her husband over the years to work on rallies, protests, speeches, and while she was raising their four children.
It was my cause and that’s the way I felt about it.”Coretta Scott King, activist for human rights and wife of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
On April 27, 1968 — just weeks after King’s assassination — she delivered her late husband’s speech on the Vietnam War and said this about women: “I have great faith in the power of women who will dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to the task of remaking our society. I believe that the women of this nation and of the world are the best and last hope for a world of peace and brotherhood.” King continued her husband’s legacy, establishing the King Center in Atlanta and spearheading the campaign to establish Martin Luther King’s birthday as a national holiday. Coretta Scott King passed away in 2006.
MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN — an activist for the poor
In 1963, Yale Law School awarded her a degree. Marian Wright Edelman She became the first Black woman to be admitted into the Mississippi State Bar. As a civil rights lawyer with the Legal Defense Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP) and became a consultant to Martin Luther King. Edelman, who was visiting Washington, D.C., shared her frustrations over the poverty in Mississippi with Robert F. Kennedy, the then-presidential hopeful. Kennedy gave Edelman a message to deliver to King. “He was sitting, always — constantly at the end — by himself trying to figure out what was the next step to take,” said Edelman in a 2012 MAKERS interview. “When I told him what Robert Kennedy had said, to bring the poor to Washington, his face lit up. He made me think I was an angel delivering a message.”
Edelman stated that King used this message in order to launch his war against poverty. However, tragically, his efforts were cut short. “His last Sunday sermon title, which he had called in on the day of his assassination to his mother in Memphis, he told her he was going to preach on why America may go to hell the next Sunday. It was, again, if we don’t share our richness, the blessings of our wealth, with all of those who need the basic necessities of life, we’re going to go to hell.”
After King’s death, Edelman continued to work on his Poor People’s Campaign Washington, D.C., was where she started a group which later became the Children’s Defense Fund, a human rights organisation that protects and advocates for children in America.
MAHALIA JACKSON — the inspiration behind the speech
There are few speeches as iconic as the 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech delivered by Martin Luther King at the March on Washington. But some may not realize those celebrated words almost didn’t happen. World-renowned gospel singer, Mahalia JacksonKing was sat behind Mahalia Jackson, who performed at the Lincoln Memorial that same day. “While he was reading from the texts of the speech, there was a shout from his favorite gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson,” King’s adviser and speechwriter Clarence B. Jones told the Wall Street Journal. “She shouted to him, ‘Tell them about the dream, Martin! Tell them about the dream!’” Jones said King looked at Jackson briefly and then moved his prepared notes to the side and grabbed the lectern. “I turned to the person standing next to me and I said, ‘These people out there, they don’t know it, but they’re about ready to go to church,’” said Jones. It was an outpouring of spontaneous inspiration that transformed the nation.
In addition to being the catalyst for King’s famous speech, Jackson was a trusted friend of the reverend, who often called her when he was feeling down so she could sing to him. She was a frequent performer at King’s rallies and demonstrations. Mahalia Jackson passed away in 1972.
DIANE NASH — a leader of lunch counter sit-ins
1960 Diane Nash I was chosen to lead a group Nashville, Tenn. college students fighting against segregation. “I remember thinking we are facing white, racist businessmen and politicians, and who are we? A group of students, 18, 19, 20 years old!” Nash told MAKERS in a 2012 interview. After extensive planning, Nash organized six sit-ins against lunch counters. A mob attacked the protesters two weeks later. “We had prepared for that in the workshops. Everyone who was there had pledged to not use violence. Everyone jumped up when they said we were being arrested and marched to the patrol car. And when the police turned around, a whole new set of demonstrators had taken seats at the lunch counter.”
Under Nash’s leadership, the students persisted and by that May, Nashville became the first Southern city to integrate its lunch counters. The Presidential Medal of Freedom was awarded to the 84-year old activist this summer. “Her activism echoes the call of freedom around the world today,” President Biden During the ceremony, she said. “And yet, she is the first to say the medal is shared with hundreds of thousands of patriotic Americans who sacrificed so much for the cause of liberty and justice for all.”
ELLA BAKER — a voice for nonviolence
Known as the “mother of the civil rights movement,” Ella Baker Before the movement was born, she was a grassroots activist. She was the director of several offices in the organization. NAACPShe rose to the top of the organization’s hierarchy. Baker helped to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), where she was a co-worker with Martin Luther King Jr. However, Baker’s and King’s philosophies did not always align. “To be very honest, the movement made Martin rather than Martin making the movement. This isn’t a discrediting to him. This is, to me, as it should be,” Baker said in a 1968 interview. “I’ve never felt it necessary for any one person to embody all that’s needed in a leadership for a group of people. Martin saw them as a part of the whole. And the most important thing was and still is, in my mind, is to develop people to the point that they don’t need the strong, savior-type leader.” Baker went on to mentor the young activists who founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating CommitteeThis group is credited with organizing 1961 Freedom Rides. Ella Baker died on August 26, 1986.