Pioneering Feminists of the Civil Rights Movement

Over the past century, the power of historians to influence the public, to shape attitudes, and to eradicate popular prejudice has been amply demonstrated. The civil rights movement is a case in point, as images of the movement appear and reappear on Martin L. King Jr. Day, and during Black History Month. But there is a silence in the stories of many of these images that makes the master narrative incomplete. As such, the narrative distorts and suppresses as much as it reveals. This statement is especially true of black Texans and the master civil rights narrative.

 

Except for the iconic figure of Barbara Jordan, more often than not, black Texans are left out of the narrative. As such, we hear very little about a number of black Texans who helped to pave the way for Barbara Jordan while reckoning with Jim Crow or the black women of Houston on whose shoulders she stood. As a result, the stories that we tell about the civil rights movement matter because they shape how we see our world, our state, and our communities. By confining the civil rights struggle in Texas to a few heroes and heroines like Barbara Jordan, the state’s narrative simultaneously elevates and diminishes the movement. The silence in the stories of civil rights activities within local communities, towns and cities have hidden many foot soldiers, ordinary men and women who were effective players in the movement, and from hearing the voices of these individuals who spoke effectively to the challenges of then. Many of these individuals were black females.