One of the few days my mother wept in my presence was April 4, 1968, the day Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed in Memphis, Tennessee. Fifty years ago this year. When I think of Dr. King鈥檚 life and death, I often think of women like my mother who seemed to hold undisclosed and unnoticed stories of suffering.
Black women of my mother鈥檚 time held true to a quest for positive identities, complicated by the overlapping oppression of race, class and gender. They were brave survivors who lived under the shadow of oppression but did not lose their faith or humanity. The memory of their efforts, routinely missing in history, is coming to light now.
In the closing comments of his final book,聽“,” Dr. King wrote: 鈥淲e are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. 鈥� This may well be mankind鈥檚 last chance to choose between chaos or community.鈥� According to him, 鈥淔or its very survival鈥檚 sake, America must re-examine old presuppositions and release itself from many things that for centuries have been held sacred. For the evils of racism, poverty and militarism to die, a new set of values must be born.鈥�
I think about some of those key phrases and ideas in a 2018 context: 鈥渢he fierce urgency of now;鈥� 鈥渃haos or community;鈥� a re-examination of our values. Our values and habits relating to women must change. It can start by seeing truth in the overlooked contributions women made to the civil rights movement. Dr. King鈥檚 call to moral vision without hubris asks us to see that the historical images of the most dramatic moments of the civil rights movement 鈥� protesters blasted by fire hoses and dogs lunging at Black people 鈥� are often images of women and girls.
The 1957 image of six young Black women who became the Little Rock Nine and who risked their lives to integrate Arkansas high schools shows us truth. To see the 1964 image of Mississippi beautician Vera聽Pigee styling hair and educating her customers on voter registration is to see a certain truth. The 1963 photo of students, mostly women, at Florida A&M University, a historically Black college, answering court charges for protesting segregated movie theaters shows truth.
Women served as teachers, civil rights organizers and as lawyers on school segregation lawsuits, and they “played vital roles in the struggle for human rights and justice in the South and the nation,鈥� according to , the first Black female director of the nonpartisan Voter Education Project. a long-time secretary of the NAACP, discussed the importance of women leaders in local branches: 鈥淲ell, actually when you think about women’s contributions to the NAACP, without the women we wouldn’t have an NAACP.鈥�
In society, and even within the movement, many Black women experienced discrimination and harassment. Starting in 2009, the interviewed participants in the struggle and included points of pride along with candid assessments about the difficulties women faced within the movement.
was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and one of three women to serve as field director for the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. She noted that gender equality was not a given: 鈥淚 often had to struggle around issues related to a woman being a project director. 鈥� We had to fight 鈥� it was a struggle to be taken seriously by the leadership, as well as by your male colleagues.鈥�
I love this statement made by , an extraordinarily effective leader for civil and women鈥檚 rights who 鈥� along with so many involved women 鈥� most people probably don鈥檛 know. Dorothy Height wanted to 鈥渂e remembered as a woman who used herself and anything she could for justice and freedom. I want to be remembered as one who tried.鈥�
How will we try? As individuals and as a community, how will we change our habits, listen with humility, learn to trust women鈥檚 stories, and not just bear witness to but march alongside women? It is time to聽extend the work for justice and equality where Dr. King left off in Memphis the day he died. If we are to learn from this moment, on the 50th anniversary of his death, let鈥檚 choose community over chaos and view King鈥檚 birthday and his death as a renewed call to action to use ourselves for justice and liberty for all.
