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We've all heard of Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and Malcolm X--each household names for their involvement with the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. But this Black History Month program explores the lives of some of the unsung heroes who helped re-shape the American scene. Have you heard of Nannie Helen Burroughs who fired up the crowd in 1900 with her impassioned “How the Sisters Are Hindered From Helping”? How about Pauli Murray who became the first Black woman ordained an Episcopalian priest, or Ella Baker, or Claudette Colvin who was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus nine months before Rosa Parks? Even though they stayed out of the limelight or simply predated the 1960s, the contributions of these individuals were just as important in fueling the movement as were the legendary historical figures we learned about in school.
Web Resources: An Overview
- THE HISTORY COLLECTION: https://historycollection.co/10-unsung-heroes-of-the-civil-rights-movement/
- PARCAST (Blog): https://www.parcast.com/blog/2016/12/21/-unsung-heroes-of-the-civil-rights-movement
- THE HISTORY CHANNEL (Black Women): https://www.history.com/news/six-unsung-heroines-of-the-civil-rights-movement
- USA TODAY (Black Women): https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/02/16/unsung-heroes-civil-rights-movement-black-women-youve-never-heard/905157001/
- MASHABLE: https://mashable.com/2016/02/13/civil-rights-unsung-heroes/#dkHNzfJMwmq9
- NY DAILY NEWS: http://interactive.nydailynews.com/2016/01/black-history-month-unsung-heroes-of-civil-rights/#index
- WUSA (CBS affiliate in Washington D.C.): https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/nation-now/the-unsung-heroes-of-the-civil-rights-movement-are-black-women-youve-never-heard-of/465-5af31f85-d7a2-42ca-8bcb-5248d3bad17d
- AFFINITY MAGAZINE: http://affinitymagazine.us/2016/08/14/6-unsung-heroes-of-the-civil-rights-movement/
- YOU TUBE VIDEO (WTF HISTORY): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwqqSJjl2nk
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Recommended Media
Three Unsung Heroes of the Civil Rights Era
1. Maude Ballou (1925-2019): The “Daredevil” Who Served as MLK’s Right-Hand Woman In 1955, Maude Ballou—a young mother who had studied business and literature in college and was program director of the first Black radio station in Montgomery, Alabama—was approached by her husband’s friend, a young minister and activist named Martin Luther King, Jr., to be the personal secretary. After agreeing, Ballou became the Rev. Dr. King’s right-hand woman from 1955 until 1960, years of great unrest and transforming events that included the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the publication of King’s first book, Stride Towards Freedom, and the Prayer Pilgrimage for Peace in Washington, D.C. Her work placed Ballou in enormous danger. In 1957, she was listed as number 21 on the Montgomery Improvement Associations list of “persons and churches most vulnerable to violent attacks.” (King was at the top of the list.) Her children’s lives were threatened, and KKK members watched her at work through the windows of the church. But Ballou just kept on working. “I was a daredevil, I guess,” she told The Washington Post in 2015. “I didn’t have time to worry about what might happen, or what had happened, or what would happen,” said Ballou, who went on to serve as a teacher and college administrator. “We were very busy doing things, knowing that anything could happen, and we just kept going.” Ballou passed away on August 26, 2019. She was 93 years old.
2. Diane Nash (born 1938): Freedom Rider and Nonviolent Student Activist for Desegregation A native of Chicago, Diane Nash hadn’t experienced the shock of desegregation within the Jim Crow South until she attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. The “Whites Only” signs scattered throughout Nashville inspired Nash to become the chairperson of the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC) in 1960, where she organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters throughout Nashville. Nash kept the group’s commitment to nonviolence front and center at the sit-ins, which proved very effective in ending the discriminatory practices within the restaurants. The following year, Nash took over responsibility for the Freedom Rides, a protest against segregated bus terminals that took place on Greyhound buses from Washington D.C. to Virginia. The Freedom Rides, which were initially organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), encountered a mob of angry segregationists as they entered Anniston, Alabama, and were brutally beaten and unable to finish the route. SNCC—under the direction of Nash— continued the protest from Birmingham, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi. Before setting off with a group of 10 students from Nashville, Nash received a call from John Seigenthaler, assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy Jr., who tried to persuade her to end the Freedom Rides, insisting the bloodshed would only continue if they persisted. Nash, unshaken by the stance of the White House, told Seigenthaler that they knew the risks involved and had already prepared their wills before continuing the Freedom Rides. Nash later moved back to Chicago and went on to serve as an advocate for fair housing practices. Her contributions to the success of Civil Rights movement have been increasingly recognized in the years since. In 1995, historian David Halberstam described Nash as “bright, focused, utterly fearless, with an unerring instinct for the correct tactical move at each increment of the crisis.”
3. Coretta Scott King (1927–2006): Human Rights Activist, Pacifist, Musician In 1968, just days after the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his wife, Coretta Scott King, took his place at a sanitation workers’ protest in Memphis. A few weeks later, she kicked off his planned Poor People Campaign. She had long been politically active, but her husband’s death galvanized her activism. King earned a bachelor’s degree in Music and Education from Antioch College, and had met her future husband while studying at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. In the early years of the civil rights movement, she hosted a series of popular “Freedom Concerts,” raising thousands of dollars for the movement. After her husband’s assassination, King campaigned tirelessly to make his birthday a national holiday, and raised millions to establish the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. An avowed feminist, she was active in the National Organization for Women, and was an early advocate for LBGTQ rights. During the 1980s, she was a vigorous opponent of apartheid. King understood that she would be remembered as a widow and human rights activist, but, as she once said, she hoped to be thought of a different way: “as a complex, three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood human being with a rich storehouse of experiences, much like everyone else, yet unique in my own way…much like everyone else.”
2. Diane Nash (born 1938): Freedom Rider and Nonviolent Student Activist for Desegregation A native of Chicago, Diane Nash hadn’t experienced the shock of desegregation within the Jim Crow South until she attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. The “Whites Only” signs scattered throughout Nashville inspired Nash to become the chairperson of the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC) in 1960, where she organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters throughout Nashville. Nash kept the group’s commitment to nonviolence front and center at the sit-ins, which proved very effective in ending the discriminatory practices within the restaurants. The following year, Nash took over responsibility for the Freedom Rides, a protest against segregated bus terminals that took place on Greyhound buses from Washington D.C. to Virginia. The Freedom Rides, which were initially organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), encountered a mob of angry segregationists as they entered Anniston, Alabama, and were brutally beaten and unable to finish the route. SNCC—under the direction of Nash— continued the protest from Birmingham, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi. Before setting off with a group of 10 students from Nashville, Nash received a call from John Seigenthaler, assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy Jr., who tried to persuade her to end the Freedom Rides, insisting the bloodshed would only continue if they persisted. Nash, unshaken by the stance of the White House, told Seigenthaler that they knew the risks involved and had already prepared their wills before continuing the Freedom Rides. Nash later moved back to Chicago and went on to serve as an advocate for fair housing practices. Her contributions to the success of Civil Rights movement have been increasingly recognized in the years since. In 1995, historian David Halberstam described Nash as “bright, focused, utterly fearless, with an unerring instinct for the correct tactical move at each increment of the crisis.”
3. Coretta Scott King (1927–2006): Human Rights Activist, Pacifist, Musician In 1968, just days after the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his wife, Coretta Scott King, took his place at a sanitation workers’ protest in Memphis. A few weeks later, she kicked off his planned Poor People Campaign. She had long been politically active, but her husband’s death galvanized her activism. King earned a bachelor’s degree in Music and Education from Antioch College, and had met her future husband while studying at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. In the early years of the civil rights movement, she hosted a series of popular “Freedom Concerts,” raising thousands of dollars for the movement. After her husband’s assassination, King campaigned tirelessly to make his birthday a national holiday, and raised millions to establish the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. An avowed feminist, she was active in the National Organization for Women, and was an early advocate for LBGTQ rights. During the 1980s, she was a vigorous opponent of apartheid. King understood that she would be remembered as a widow and human rights activist, but, as she once said, she hoped to be thought of a different way: “as a complex, three-dimensional, flesh-and-blood human being with a rich storehouse of experiences, much like everyone else, yet unique in my own way…much like everyone else.”
Maude Ballou
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Diane Nash
Coretta Scott King
Nannie Burroughs
Ella Baker
Pauli Murray
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Bayard Rustin
Mamie Till Mobley
Claudette Colvin
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Unsung Leaders and Workers
Montgomery Bus BoycottAurelia BrowderMary Louise SmithJo Ann RobinsonClaudette Colvin
Organizers/LeadersElla BakerBayard RustinStokely CarmichaelFannie Lou HamerDorothy HeightWhitney Young, Jr.
ActivistsFred ShuttlesworthJames MeredithFrank Smith, Jr.Pauli MurrayDaisy BatesDiane NashFred GrayRuby BridgesDion DiamondAmelia Boynton RobinsonSheyann WebbRalph Abernathy
Black PanthersBobby SealeHuey NewtonFred Hampton
Organizers/LeadersElla BakerBayard RustinStokely CarmichaelFannie Lou HamerDorothy HeightWhitney Young, Jr.
ActivistsFred ShuttlesworthJames MeredithFrank Smith, Jr.Pauli MurrayDaisy BatesDiane NashFred GrayRuby BridgesDion DiamondAmelia Boynton RobinsonSheyann WebbRalph Abernathy
Black PanthersBobby SealeHuey NewtonFred Hampton
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Ella Baker
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