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8 Black Women of the Civil Rights Era Who Don’t Get the Praise They Deserve

Posted byBy Yanique Dawkins | Published on: CommentsComments (6)

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Ella Josephine Baker (Dec. 13, 1903 – Dec. 13, 1986)

Ella Josephine Baker was a civil rights and human rights activist. She worked mostly behind the scenes with some of the most prominent leaders in the movement, including Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph and Martin Luther King Jr., Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, Rosa Parks and Bob Moses.

She was actively involved in organizations such as the Southern Conference Education Fund (SCEF), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the NAACP.

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Fannie Lou Hamer (Oct. 6, 1917 – March 14, 1977)

Fannie Hamer was an American voting rights activist and civil rights leader. She worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) of which she was  a co-founder. Hamer was instrumental in bringing attention to the civil rights struggle in Mississippi to the entire nation during a televised session at the MFDP convention in 1975.

During the course of her activist career, Hamer endured threats, arrests and beatings. Reportedly, Hamer was severely injured in 1963 in a Winona, Mississippi, jail when she and two other activists were taken in by police after attending a training workshop. Hamer was beaten so badly that she suffered permanent kidney damage.

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