Weekly Reflection: Mothers of the Movement

Mar 9, 2023

March is Women’s History Month. The Weekly Reflections this month will focus on several women who made major contributions to the modern Civil Rights Movement. This is especially important because their names are not as familiar to many people as the major male leaders of that time. The society in general and even the movement itself were largely patriarchal despite the fact that the participation of women was central to the various campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. The women highlighted this month are by no means a comprehensive list of the courage and contributions of women in the movement. Rather they are representative of the thousands of others who put their lives on the line to stand up for racial justice.

Today’s reflection features two women who played major parts in two of the most famous campaigns of the 1950’s – the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56 and the desegregation of Central High School by the Little Rock Nine in 1957-58.

Jo Ann Robinson was on the faculty of Alabama State College and a member of the Women’s Political Council in Montgomery, AL. She was a long time advocate for racial justice and desegregation of public transportation before the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Yet following the arrest of Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955, Jo Ann Robinson initiated a one day boycott of city buses on the day of Mrs. Parks trial on December 5. Using the mimeograph machine at Alabama State College, she stayed up all night along with a few others and produced 35,000 handbills to publicize the boycott. The success of that one day boycott turned into the famous Montgomery Bus Boycott that lasted 381 days and propelled Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. into the national spotlight. Throughout the long boycott, Jo Ann Robinson continue to provide organizational leadership. She was arrested numerous times and local police officers threw a brick through a window in her home and poured acid on her car. Dr. King said of Jo Ann Robinson, “Apparently indefatigable, she, perhaps more than any other person, was active on every level of protest”.

Daisy Bates and her husband lived in Little Rock, AR and started a newspaper called The Arkansas Free Press in 1941. The paper advocated for racial justice and civil rights for Black people. In 1952 she was elected President of the NAACP Arkansas State Conferences. After the famous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, she worked to implement desegregated public education in Arkansas despite the resistance of local and state officials. As part of that work, she became the mentor of the Little Rock Nine who desegregated Central High School in 1957-58. The nine Black students gathered at her home each day for support as they faced ongoing harassment throughout that school year. The Bates home became a target for hateful acts by those who opposed desegregation including rocks thrown through windows and a cross burned on the lawn. That home is now a National Historic Landmark. Her courage and contributions were recognized at the famous March on Washington in 1963 where she was one of the only women speakers.

The two short videos posted below highlight the contributions of these two mothers of the movement.