Womanpower Unlimited and the Black Freedom Struggle in Mississippi

Tiyi Morris, Bryant Simon, Jane Dailey, J. Thornton

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780820347318, 9780820347301
• eBook ISBN: 9780820347936
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

In Womanpower Unlimited and the Black Freedom Struggle in Mississippi, Tiyi M. Morris provides the first comprehensive examination of the Jackson, Mississippi–based women's organization Womanpower Unlimited. Founded in 1961 by Clarie Collins Harvey, the organization was created initially to provide aid to the Freedom Riders who were unjustly arrested and then tortured in Mississippi jails. Womanpower Unlimited expanded its activism to include programs such as voter registration drives, youth education, and participation in Women Strike for Peace. Womanpower Unlimited proved to be not only a significant organization with regard to civil rights activism in Mississippi but also a spearhead movement for revitalizing black women's social and political activism in the state.

Womanpower Unlimited elucidates the role that the group played in sustaining the civil rights movement in Mississippi. Consistent with the recent scholarship that emphasizes the necessity of a bottom-up analysis for attaining a more comprehensive narrative of the civil rights movement, this work broadens our understanding of movement history in general by examining the roles of "local people" as well as the leadership women provided. Additionally, it contributes to a better understanding of how the movement developed in Mississippi by examining some of the lesserknown women upon whom activists, both inside and outside of the state, relied. Black women, and Womanpower specifically, were central to movement successes in Mississippi; and Womanpower's humanist agenda resulted in its having the most diverse agenda of a Mississippi-based civil rights organization.

INDEX

Ackerman, Hope, 136

Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, 160

American Ethical Union (AEU), 147, 161, 162, 163, 166, 171, 211n63

Commission on Race and Equality, 161, 162, 163, 165

American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), 78

Armstrong, Eunice Dean, 94, 95

opposition to sending all white delegation to Accra, 97, 99

Augur, Patricia, 157, 158

Bagby, Jeanne, 90

Baker, Ella, 15, 185, 188n43

leadership philosophy, 35, 36, 41, 42, 141

mentoring youth, 28

Barnes, Barbara 120, 136

Barnett, Ross, 22, 54

Batson, Ruth, 126, 127–30, 131, 132, 140, 141

Beittel, A. D., 81, 162, 211n63

Beittel, Ruth, 83, 113, 162

“beloved community,” 163, 164, 193n70

WU’s philosophy of, 40, 44, 51, 108, 167

Bethune, Mary McLeod, 1, 114, 115, 146

Black advancement. See race uplift

Black clubwomen, 4, 5, 9–10, 39, 57, 58, 63

Black feminist, 5, 44, 111

“womanist insurgence,” 12

Black freedom struggle: bridge between local and national organizations, 48, 114, 116, 129, 145

whites sympathetic to, 49, 81, 116, 131, 148

youth activism, 19, 20, 23, 24, 28, 34, 54, 105, 117

Black women activists, 1, 2, 3–7, 10, 12, 27, 36, 45, 186

acknowledgement of foremothers, 50, 92–93

agency 3, 6, 42, 43

historical invisibility, 13

the legacy of Black women’s activism, 170

political activism, 4, 6, 9, 10, 39, 58, 114, 169

suffrage, 56–58, 195n18

willingness to work without recognition, 24, 41, 119, 160, 190n30

and women’s sexual ex...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction. “Women Are the Humanizers of the Struggle”: Black Women’s Legacy of Activism
• One. “It Was Just Women Who Dared to Dream”: The Emergence of Womanpower Unlimited
• Two. “You Could Just See Things Being Accomplished”: The Women Who Built the Movement
• Three. “’Cause I Love My People”: Sustaining the People and the Movement
• Four. “We Who Believe in Freedom”: Interracial Cooperation and Peace Activism
• Five. “Welcome, Ladies, to Magnolialand”: Womanpower and Wednesdays Women
• Six. “When There Was a Need”: Ministering to the People
• Conclusion. Women’s Power Transformed: Joining Forces with the National Council of Negro Women
• Epilogue. “This Woman’s Work”: Activism in the Post–Civil Rights Years
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index