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Today marks the 50th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King “I have a dream” speech; thousands will descend upon the Washington monument to commemorate what so many marched for 50 years ago. Although this is a special occasion worthy to be celebrated, there is portion of the movement that never got recognize or given the credit that they were do and that is the Women of the Civil Rights Movement.

During that time there was almost an unwritten rule of the civil rights movement and that was the women would step back and let the men take the credit. The belief in America at that time was that a women place was in the home. That was the same attitude that most of the men of the civil right movement had too. However the women proved to be some of the best asset to the movement.

  • Dorothy Heights was an American administrator, educator, and a Civil Rights and Women’s Rights activist specifically focused on the issues of African-American women.
  • Ella Baker was a charismatic labor organizer and longtime leader in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. She believed the movement should not place too much emphasis on leaders.
  • Septima Poinsette Clark, often called the “queen mother” of civil rights, was an educator and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People activist decades before the nation’s attention turned to racial equality.
  • Fannie Lou Hamer, a Mississippi sharecropper, was beaten and jailed in 1962 for trying to register to vote. She co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and gave a fiery speech at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
  • Vivian Malone Jones defied segregationist Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace to enroll in the University of Alabama in 1963 and later worked in the civil rights division of the U.S. Justice Department.

Rosa Park, Shirley Chisholm  Mary Bethune Cookman, Daisy Bates, Ida B. Wells Diane Nash Bates, Amelia Boynton Robinson, Daisy Lambkin and so many other countless women we will remember you. Tens of thousands of women who joined the March on Washington in 1963, Josephine Baker was the only women who made a speech. We must ensure that the story of women in the movement is told and the record is accurate.

Below is an interview Civil Rights Pioneer Gloria Richardson, 91 where she share her thoughts on how women were silenced at 1963 March on Washington.

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