Black women have always served on the front-line in the fight for equality. Although their contributions were sometimes overlooked in both the Civil Rights and Women’s Movements, their power, resilience, and courage cannot be overstated. Black women have a distinctive standpoint from which to understand the intersection of race and gender and their unique experience of oppression. The women highlighted in here are connected by an intricate network of activists that spans several generations. Through their stories – revealed in National Park Service parks and programs -- we gain a better understanding of what it takes to meet the promise of justice and equality for all.
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Daisy BatesDaisy Bates was an African American civil rights activist and newspaper publisher. She documented the fight for desegregation in Arkansas.
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Unita BlackwellBorn to sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta, Blackwell rose from humble beginnings to become a heroine of the Civil Rights movement.
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Hallie Quinn BrownThere are people who give great speeches, and there are those who perform them. Hallie Quinn Brown was one of the few who performed them.
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Dr. Anna Julia CooperBorn into slavery in 1859, Cooper would become a distinguished author, activist, educator, and scholar.
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Shirley Graham Du BoisBefore Shirley Graham married W.E.B. Du Bois in 1951, she had earned a national reputation as a playwright, composer, director, and author.
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Anna Arnold HegemanAnna Hedgeman participated in and led some of the 20th century’s most important developments, including education, public health, & justice.
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Diane Judith NashFor Nash, nonviolence is not a strategy or tactic, nor it is simply the absence of violence. It is a way of life.
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Modjeska Monteith SimkinsModjeska Simkins was the matriarch of the Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina. She was also a leader in African-American public health.
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Mrs. Recy TaylorThrough their testimonies, Black women like Mrs. Taylor fought against sexualized violence and sparked larger campaigns for racial justice
Learn More About Black Women and the Struggle for Equality
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- Type: Person
- Locations: Boston National Historical Park, Boston African American National Historic Site
Dr. Melnea Cass, distinguished in 1977 as a "Grand Bostonian," was a devoted advocate for the city's most vulnerable residents. Among her many efforts, Cass helped achieve legal protections for low-wage migrant workers and proved the potency of Black women's activism.
- Type: Person
In his journey from captive slave to internationally renowned activist, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) has been a source of inspiration and hope for millions. His brilliant words and brave actions continue to shape the ways that we think about race, democracy, and the meaning of freedom.
- Type: Person
Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree in 1797 in Ulster County, New York, the daughter of James and Elizabeth Baumfree. Born enslaved, she remained the property of others until she freed herself in 1826. After a religious epiphany in 1843, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth and traveled the country advocating for African American and women's rights.
- Type: Person
Septima Clark was a civil rights activist and the founder of Citizenship Schools. She began her career as a teacher and was inspired by the power of activism to bring about positive change. Fired from her teaching job due to her affiliation with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Clark went on to create educational programs to teach African American community members how to read and write.
- Homestead National Historical Park
Mahala Ashley Dickerson
- Type: Person
- Locations: Homestead National Historical Park
Mahala Ashley Dickerson was an American lawyer and civil rights advocate for women and minorities. In 1948 she became the first African American female attorney admitted to the Alabama State Bar. Upon filing a claim for a 160-acre homestead in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, Dickerson became Alaska's first black Homesteader.
- Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site
Just as Well as He: Adella Hunt Logan
- Type: Person
- Locations: Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site
Adella Hunt Logan was born free in Sparta, Georgia in 1863 to Maria Hunt, a black and Creek Native American, and a white planter. She attended Atlanta University in 1879 and received a master’s degree from there in 1905. In 1883 Adella became the second woman to join the faculty of Tuskegee University. She was an active suffragist and involved in the Black Women's Club movement.
- Type: Person
Elizabeth Lindsay Davis was a writer, teacher, and leader in the African American women’s club and settlement house movements. Through these channels, she advocated for the civil rights, education, self-determination, and equitable employment of African American women and girls in Chicago, throughout Illinois, and across the United States.
- Type: Person
Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) was a journalist, civil rights advocate, suffragist.
- Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
Rosa Parks
- Type: Person
- Locations: Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
Rosa Parks invigorated the struggle for racial equality when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Parks' arrest on December 1, 1955 launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott by 17,000 black citizens. A Supreme Court ruling and declining revenues forced the city to desegregate its buses thirteen months later.
- Type: Person
- Locations: Boston National Historical Park, Boston African American National Historic Site
Educator and activist Maria Louise Baldwin belonged to a generation of Bostonian Black women involved in 19th and early 20th century activism. Her professional career and her life in activism set goals that are still being fought for today: social justice, equity, and representation for Black Americans.
Last updated: October 22, 2024