Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement

The rarely heard stories of the brave African American women at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement.

Sisters in the Struggle tells the stories and documents the contributions of African American women to the most important social reform in the United States in the twentieth century. Only recently have historians and other researchers begun to recognize black women’s central role in the battle for racial and gender equality.

These essays describe the early ideological development of Ella Baker, who helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1960; Fannie Lou Hamer’s use of personal anguish to mold her public persona; and Septima Clark’s creation of a network of “Citizenship Schools” to teach poor black southerners to read and write to help them register to vote. We learn of black women’s activism in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, the Black Panther Party, and the Free Joan Little Movement in the 1970s. It also includes personal testimonies from women who made headlines with their courageous resistance to racism and sexism—Rosa Parks, Charlayne Hunter Gault, and Dorothy Height.

Sisters in the Struggle presents a detailed analysis of the multifaceted roles played by women in civil rights and Black Power organizations, as well as the major political parties at the local, state, and national levels, while documenting the formation of a distinct black feminist consciousness. It represents the coming of age of African American women’s history and presents new studies that point the way to future research and analysis.

Contributors: Bettye Collier-Thomas, Vicki Crawford, Cynthia Griggs Fleming, V. P. Franklin, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Duchess Harris, Sharon Harley, Dorothy I. Height, Chana Kai Lee, Tracye Matthews, Genna Rae McNeil, Rosa Parks, Barbara Ransby, Jacqueline A. Rouse, Elaine Moore Smith, and Linda Faye Williams