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The impact of Frederick Douglass on slavery
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The influence of civil rights women's movement
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Fannie Lou Hamer
"If the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question American. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off of the hook because of our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings in America?" Fannie Lou Hammer before the Democratic National Convention, 1964. Fannie Lou Hamer is best known for her involvement in the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC). The SNCC was at the head of the American voter registration drives of the 1960's. Hamer was a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Freedom Party (MFDP), which ultimately succeeded in electing many blacks to national office in the state of Mississippi. Through her work with the SNCC and her part in the MFDP Hamer has had a large impact in America's History.
There is no evidence to show that Fannie Lou Hamer's work in the civil rights movement was meant to be, other than her own heartbreaking childhood. "Hamer's involvement in the civil rights cause was more than a function of generic identification with the collective suffering of her race, class, and sex. What seemed an insurmountable combination of poverty and racism to many sharecropping families was, for Hamer, an inspiration to relentless effort". October 6, 1917 Hamer was born in Montgomery County, Mississippi; the youngest of 20 children. She had 14 brothers and 5 sister. Her parents Jim and Lou Ella Townsend, were sharecroppers who fed their whole family on $1.25 a day. While Fannie was outside playing the plantation owner drove up and asked if she could pick cotton. After Fannie agreed to pick cotton after the owner promised her "a 'reward' of sardines, a quarter-pound of chee...
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... Kai. For freedom's sake: the life of Fannie Lou Hamer / Chana Kai Lee. University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Marsh, Charles. God's Long Summer. Princeton University Press, 1997.
Rubel, David. Fannie Lou Hamer: from sharecropping to politics. Silver Burdett Press, 1990.
Books Found on American: History and Life database:
Bryan, Dianetta Gail. Her-Story Unsilenced: Black Female Activists in the Civil Rights Movement. Vol. 5 of Sage: A Scholarly Journal On Black Women 1988. 60-64.
Rooks, Noliwe. The Women Who Said, I AM. Vol. Sage: A Scholarly Journal On Black Women 1988.
Primary Document: Interview with Fannie Lou Hamer April 14, 1972. The interviewer is Dr. Neil McMillen.
"An Oral History with Fannie Lou Hamer" The University Of Southern Mississippi, 17 January 2001 cited 24 April 2001; available from www.lib.usm.edu/~spcol/crda/oh/hamer.htm.
According to Jacqueline Jones’ perspective of the treatment of African American women during the American Revolution in “The Mixed Legacy of the American Revolution for Black Women” in our early history there was an obvious status differentiation in black women’s
*Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham. "African American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race" in Feminism and History, ed. Joan Wallach Scott (NY: Oxford University Press, 1996), 201.
World War II impacted Hawaii greatly. From economics to sex to race relations, Hawaii would never be the same. Chinatown was filled a sea of white uniformed men filing into lines for tattoo parlors and brothels. A famed prostitute at this time was none other than Jean O’Hara. The publication of her book My Life as a Honolulu Prostitute, led to the immediate shutting down of the brothels in Honolulu. Through this spirited hot-tempered woman, we are able to see into the lives of the women in the brothels.
Showing any kind of courage can lead to sacrifices. When a person takes action for what she believes in despite the consequences, she is showing political courage. Because Hilda Solis was taught by her father, an immigrant from Mexico who worked at a battery recycling plant, to stand up for her rights no matter what heritage she is, Solis was conscious about the difficulties of being in a working-class community. While in college, Solis interned at the White House Office of Hispanic Affairs which taught her that she can accomplish anything, if she works hard (“Hilda Solis,” Newsmakers). Hilda Solis showed political courage when she raised the minimum wage in California by writing a bill, enforced the law of anti-sweatshops, stood up for minority and poor communities by starting the creation of the Environmental Bill, and fought for more power for interns and workers.
Collins, Patricia. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York, NY: Routledge, 2000
Anna Julia Cooper’s, Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress, an excerpt from A Voice from the South, discusses the state of race and gender in America with an emphasis on African American women of the south. She contributes a number of things to the destitute state African American woman became accustom to and believe education and elevation of the black woman would change not only the state of the African American community but the nation as well. Cooper’s analysis is based around three concepts, the merging of the Barbaric with Christianity, the Feudal system, and the regeneration of the black woman.
Anne Moody had thought about joining the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), but she never did until she found out one of her roommates at Tougaloo college was the secretary. Her roommate asked, “why don’t you become a member” (248), so Anne did. Once she went to a meeting, she became actively involved. She was always participating in various freedom marches, would go out into the community to get black people to register to vote. She always seemed to be working on getting support from the black community, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. Son after she joined the NAACP, she met a girl that was the secretary to the ...
Baker, Ella. A. Developing Leadership among Other People in Civil Rights. The American Women's Movement, 1945-2000. A Brief History with Documents. Comp.
During the time, Jim Crow laws were established and were maintaining racial inequality. African Americans were then required to take literacy tests and pay poll taxes in order to vote. Subsequently, she helped other African Americans prepare for the test.
Crystal spent majority of her time expanding her life experiences in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania economically, politically, and socially (“The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed”). Fauset helped establish the famous Swarthmore College Insti...
Her ideals were perfect for the times. In the mid-1960s the civil rights movement was in full swing. Across the nation, activists were working for equal civil rights for all Americans, regardless of race. In 1964 Chisholm was elected to the assembly. During the time that she served in the assembly Chisholm sponsored fifty bills, but only eight of them passed. One of the successful bills she supported provided assistance for poor students to go on to higher education. Another provided employment insurance coverage for personal and domestic employees. Still another bill reversed a law that caused female teachers in New York to lose their tenure (permanence of position) while they were out on maternity
Karenga, Malauna. Introduction to Black Studies. Los Angeles: University of Sankore Press Third Edition, 2002.
Standley, Anne. "The Role of Black Women in the Civil Rights Movement." Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers, 1941-1965. By Vicki L. Crawford, Jacqueline Anne. Rouse, and Barbara Woods. Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Pub., 1990. 183-202. Print.
Madam CJ Walker was and is still known today as, “the world’s most successful female entrepreneur of her time”. Ms Walker didn’t grow up successful and had to work hard to accomplish what she did, as well as spoke up for what she believed in until her final days. Born Sarah Breedlove on December 23 1867, close to Delta, Louisiana, Walker was one of six children. Her parents and older siblings worked as slaves on a plantation, but Sarah was the first of the six to be freed after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. At age 7, Breedlove became an orphan after the death of both parents, and later moved to Mississippi to live with her older sister and her brother-in-law-age 10. However, Sarah moved out and got married to her first of three
Nnoromele, Salome C. "Representing the African Woman: Subjectivity and Self in The Joys of Motherhood." Critique 43.2 (2002): 178-190.