Spring 2017
“They (black women) did many things to help in the Civil Rights Movement, but you’ll never see it put down anywhere in any of the reports.” stated Septima Poinsette Clark, “I don’t know why it is, but they don’t give the women any of the glory at all.” Oversight of women stemmed from multiple sources, including: lack of high level leadership roles, their highly localized efforts and a national media, largely devoid of women, failing to cover black women’s work in the movement. Clark is a prime example of a historically undervalued female leader in the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr. may have awoken a sleeping giant through his speeches, but it was in many ways the grassroots work of Clark and women like her that created the giant itself. If local activity is understood as foundational for the movement, then Septima P. Clark as a black female educator and activist serves as a primary example of female ownership and leadership in the movement.
Historically famous civil rights activists and their major feats were founded primarily upon local activity. King, the most famous activist, serves an example in his first “feat” – the Montgomery bus boycott. Rosa Parks wasn’t the first Montgomery woman planted in a seat she did not belong in, but she would be the last. In her autobiography, Rosa Parks: My Story, there is a different narrative of the boycott and herself. Instead of a woman who was simply tired and could not stand, there was a woman who would stand up, but would not move. “No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” Parks stated. This defiant woman, painted passive in history, by her own account is a lifelong activist. A member of the NAACP for a number of years prior to the boycott and after, Parks was not “just a symbol, but an agent.” However, she was not the only, nor the primary leader of the boycott, and neither was King. Jo Ann Robinson, a relatively unknown professor orchestrated the boycott. She and hundreds of local women working as domestics, who relied heavily on the transit system, through extraordinary community organizing and mutual aid societies would find a way out of no way. It wasn’t until the highly improbable boycott began to experience real success and longevity that King and other local preachers would get involved. “Although women often lead local campaigns at their start,” civil rights historian Lynne Olson states, “When their efforts began to bear fruit, prominent men often took the helm.” It was success that would push women to the fringes, with Rosa Parks herself denied the opportunity to speak at the first mass meeting. Told that she had “done enough” Parks, Robinson and the women of the Montgomery bus boycott serve as an example of the foundational role local, female activity played during major moments in movement history.
Leaders in local activism were largely female. “The ones who came out first for the movement were the women.” former chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating committee, Stokely Carmichael stated, “As a matter of fact, we used to say, ‘Once you got the women, the men got to come.’” It was a matter of tradition in the black community for women to organize. As Bernice Johnson Reagon states in “On Beginning a Cultural Biography”, black women in their communities felt compelled to live their lives in a way that puts their community first. According to Reagon, the majority of those in jail, marching, and in mass meetings were women. But, most importantly, the long, intense campaigns and daily mass meetings were attended and fueled almost exclusively by women. Fannie Lou Hamer, a woman who was born, struggled and died in Sunflower County, Mississippi was led, like many other black women in the movement, by a conviction that her community came before all else. Hamer would help found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, for her brothers and sisters who had no voice under the all-white democratic regime. She would also labor through freedom summer to guide and empower students who through freedom schools and voter registration drives sought to empower the people of her community. In this way, Hamer is very much like the “grandmother of the movement” Septima P. Clark, a woman whose life makes her a primary example of female leadership in the movement.
Septima P. Clark was raised in local activism. Her father was a former slave and mother a Haitian immigrant who wanted her daughters to have the opportunities she did not. Education was first and foremost among these. Victoria Clark after a stint at public school was able to send her daughter to a private school operated by black women, but this would only be the first i many moves during Septima’s educational journey. Septima would return to public school due to her family’s working class income, but would again attend an african run high school, Avery, when she reached the eighth grade, the highest level of public education avialable to black Charlestonians at the time. Religion was also an integral part of Clark’s youth. Her family attended the United Methodists integrated church, who hosted mass meetings, debates and other political events. This background, gave Clark the same spiritual fabric that others like Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer and Prathia would share – freedom faith. This was the belief that “God wants all people to be free and equips those who work for freedom.” Through marriage, divorce and the birth of a son, Clark would be tested emotionally and spiritually, but her commitment to freedom, her freedom faith, made Clark a life-long activist. It all began when she became a teacher.
LAST SENTENCE: In 1916 Septima P. Clark would start an important journey toward becoming a local activist herself: teaching at Avery.
Clark as a teacher was inherently an activist in her community.
The NAACP was the beginning of organized activism for Clark.
At Highlander Folk School, Septima P. Clark began a trial and error journey of educational activism.
As head of education for the SCLC, Clark became a leader of leaders. Dr. Oba T’Shaka, a former civil rights leader in San Francisco, in his book on leadership in the black community, states that leadership is inherent in organization – a leader “organizes and structures what the people want.”
The work of Clark and other female leaders in the movement were forgotten for many reasons, the foremost being lack of media coverage.
Others argue that sexism, lack of high leadership positions and lack of national roles kept women from being recognized.
Conclusion