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Home , Audre Lorde, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Harry Belafonte

SISTERS OF FREEDOM African American Women Moving Us Forward Drawing from its remarkable archive and additional sources, Syracuse Cultural Workers curated this in- spirational and educational exhibit on African American women from the 1800’s to present. While by no means exhaustive, “Sisters of Freedom” provides a dramatic glimpse of the power and passion of 41 women who have transformed their lives, their culture and their country. Ideal for colleges, schools, religious groups, unions, professional organizations, conferences, special events, and many other venues

Sisters of Freedom consists of six tri-fold panels (folds down to 3’ x 4’). Lightweight and portable, it is meant to be displayed on six 6’ tables and can be set up in 30 minutes.

PANEL A (1 OF 6) PANEL D (4 of 6) PANEL F (6 of 6) *Sojourner Truth, The National , Dorothy *Audre Lorde, Homage to Kitch- Women’s History Project, Height, , en Table Press, , *Harriet Tubman, * Marian Wright Edelman, African American Women..., , Bernice Johnson Anita Hill, Lateefah Simon, PANEL B (2 OF 6) Reagon, * *Ellen Blalock, Cheryl Contee, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, *Sarah Kimberly Freeman Brown, Loguen Fraser, Mary McLeod PANEL E (5 of 6) Majora Carter, Imani Perry Bethune, Zora Neale Hurston, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Unita Pauli Murray, Ella J. Baker Blackwell, , Gloria *related products available St. Clair Hayes Richardson, Alice see back page PANEL C (3 of 6) Walker, , Septima P. Clark, , *Rosa , , Parks, *, 1961 Cynthia McKinney, *Barbara Lee ,

SoF Info Guide 5/13 cialists, anarchists, and radical trade unionists who were op- SISTERS OF FREEDOM PROFILES posed to the policies of the American Federation of Labor. PANEL A: The organizers believed that all workers should organize as Sojourner Truth, c. 1797-1883 a class, regardless of the industry in which they worked, and ELOQUENT PREACHER, ABOLITIONIST AND it was the only American union (besides the Knights of La- FEMINIST bor) to welcome all workers including women, immigrants, Born into in as Isabella Baumfree (after and Asians into the same organization. her father’s– owner, Baumfree)– she– took the –name Sojourner Truth after a religious conversion experience which led her PANEL B: to become a traveling preacher (the meaning of her new Ida B. Wells-Barnett, 1862-1931 name). A powerful advocate of abolition, temperance and FEARLESS ANTI-LYNCHING CRUSADER, SUFFRAGIST, women’s rights, from the 1840’s through the late 1870’s WOMEN’S RIGHTS ADVOCATE AND JOURNALIST Sojourner traveled widely throughout the northern states, Born a slave in 1862, Ida Wells became one of our nation’s her personal magnetism drawing large crowds wherever earliest civil– rights leaders.– Beginning– in 1892– she carried she appeared. out a national campaign against lynching – the hanging, burning or shooting of a person without trial. By the time The National Women’s History Project was founded in of her death, lynching in the US had disappeared almost 1980 with the goal of “writing women back into history.” entirely, due largely to her efforts. A founding member of www.nwhp.org the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), she was among the few Black leaders to Harriet Tubman, c. 1820-1913 publicly oppose Booker T. Washington and his strategies. CONDUCTOR FOR THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, DAR- As a result, she was viewed as one of the most radical of the ING CIVIL WAR SCOUT AND SPY founders and was marginalized from its leadership posi- An escaped slave, Tubman worked as a lumberjack, laun- tions. dress, nurse, and cook. As an abolitionist, she acted as The poster element “Signed, Iola,” refers to the pen name intelligence gatherer, refugee organizer, raid leader, nurse, she used for her early columns in the Black press. and fundraiser, all as part of the struggle for liberation from slavery and . Over the course of 10 years, and at Sarah Loguen Fraser, 1850-1933 great personal risk, she personally led hundreds of slaves to PIONEERING PHYSICIAN freedom along the Underground Railroad, a secret network Sarah Loguen, MD grew up in Syracuse, NY and became of safe houses where runaway slaves could stay on their one of the nation’s first African American women physi- journey north to freedom. In the nearly half-century she cians. The daughter of abolitionists Caroline Storum and lived after the war ended, Harriet Tubman spoke for the the Reverend Jermain Wesley Loguen, a former slave, Fraser rights of women and African Americans, helped organize was raised in a family that helped 1,500 African Americans the AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Zion Church, and set on their dangerous escape from slavery to freedom. up a home for indigent, aged African Americans. About the poster: Mary McLeod Bethune, 1875-1955 This poster, published by SCW in 1987, uses Harriet Tub- VISIONARY EDUCATOR AND LEADER man’s work as inspiration for the sanctuary movement In 1904, Mrs. Bethune opened a school for Negro girls in which brought endangered Latin American activists to Daytona, FL with just five students. Through her abilities as the US. These activists were opposing murderous regimes an organizer, fundraiser and teacher, the school flourished, supported by the US. The poster was also a playbill for the in 1929 becoming the co-educational Bethune-Cookman Underground Railroad Theatre Company based in Boston. College. She founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935, envisioning an “organization of organizations” that Lucy Parsons, c. 1853-1942 would represent the national and international concerns of UNCOMPROMISING TRADE UNIONIST, RADICAL Black women. From 1936-1945 she served as an informal ORGANIZER AND SPEAKER, CO-FOUNDER IWW special advisor to the Franklin Roosevelt administration and Born in Texas around 1853, it is likely that Parsons’ parents helped create the federal Council on Negro Affairs. were slaves with African American, Native American, and Mexican ancestry. In 1873 she and her husband Albert Zora Neale Hurston, 1891-1960 settled in and became integral to the socialist and FOLKLORIST AND WRITER OF THE anarchist movements seeking to improve the condition RENAISSANCE of the industrial working classes. For almost 70 years, she Hurston grew up in the culturally affirming setting of fought for the rights of the poor and disenfranchised in Eatonville, FL, a rural community near Orlando that was the face of an increasingly oppressive industrial economic the nation’s first incorporated Black township. A graduate system. Her radical activism challenged racist and sexist of Barnard College, she was the most successful and most conventions in a time when even radical Americans significant Black woman writer of the first half of the 20th believed that a woman’s place was in the home. century. Over a career that spanned more than 30 years, she published four novels, two books of folklore, an The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was founded in autobiography, numerous short stories, and several essays, Chicago in June 1905 at a convention of two hundred so- articles and plays. 1 Pauli Murray, 1910-1985 on, its work nurtured the , FEMINIST, LAWYER, TEACHER AND ORDAINED and today it remains a catalyst for grassroots organizing MINISTER and movement building in Appalachia and the South. The granddaughter of a slave and great-granddaughter www.highlandercenter.org of a slave owner, Murray rebelled against the segregation that was an accepted fact of life growing up in the “col- Odetta, 1930-2008 ored” section of Durham, NC. In 1944, while at Howard FOLKSINGER, SONGWRITER, ACTIVIST University Law School, she and other women students Born Odetta Holmes in Birmingham, AL during the De- made one of the earliest uses of Gandhian tactics, suc- pression, the music of that time and place — particularly cessfully staging the first sit-in demonstration resulting in prison songs and work songs sung in the fields of the the desegregation of a cafeteria in Washington, DC. Her Deep South — shaped her life. letter-writing campaign to the challenging “They were liberation songs,” she said in an interview with the Roosevelt administration on domestic policies led . She added: “You’re walking down life’s to a lasting friendship and professional relationship with road, society’s foot is on your throat, every which way you Eleanor Roosevelt. A founding member of the National turn you can’t get from under that foot. And you reach Organization for Women (1966), she was the first Black a fork in the road and you can either lie down and die or woman and one of the first women to be ordained (1978) insist upon your life.” In 1953, Odetta was invited to per- in the Episcopal Church. form at a folk club in NYC where her appearance inspired “One person plus one typewriter constitutes a the help of and . Her political movement.” visibility increased in the 60’s as a major voice in the Civil Rights Movement, her songs blending the personal and Ella J. Baker, 1903-1986 the political, the theatrical and the spiritual. “SPIRITUAL MOTHER” OF THE STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE (SNCC) , 1913-2005 A lifelong social activist, in 1930 Baker joined the Young NAACP STALWART, SPARK OF THE MONTGOMERY BUS Negroes Cooperative League and in 1940 began her BOYCOTT, LIFELONG CIVIL RIGHTS ADVOCATE involvement with the NAACP. In 1957, she moved to At- The secretary and a long-time member of the NAACP, lanta to organize with the Southern Christian Leadership Parks was well-known to African American leaders in Conference (SCLC), running a voter registration campaign Montgomery for her opposition to segregation, her lead- called the Crusade for Citizenship. She stayed at SCLC for ership abilities and her moral strength. On December 1, two years although she disagreed with its policy of strong 1955, she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a central leadership over grassroots organization, saying bus, sparking the protest boycott which lasted 381 days, “strong people don’t need strong leaders.” eventually succeeding in putting an end to this segrega- tion.

PANEL C. Claudette Colvin, b.1939 Septima P. Clark, 1898-1987 COURAGEOUS TEEN PLAINTIFF IN BROWDER V. FOUNDER OF “CITIZENSHIP SCHOOLS” THAT GAYLE, COURT DECISION THAT DESEGREGATED MONT- CREATED THE GRASSROOTS BASE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS GOMERY, AL BUSES MOVEMENT In 1955 when she was a high school junior, Colvin Fired from– teaching in– Charleston,– SC in 1947– for being was arrested, dragged backwards off the bus by police, a member of the NAACP, Clark relocated to Monteagle, handcuffed and jailed for refusing to surrender her bus TN, teaching interracial adult education at the High- seat to a white passenger. A year later, she and three lander Folk School. There, Clark devised a curriculum that other women sued the city of Montgomery and the state focused on promoting voter registration and empower- of Alabama, challenging the laws requiring segregated ing people to solve their issues through social activism. seating on buses. Only after they won their case were the She created her first “Citizenship School” on John’s Island city’s buses integrated. in 1957. With Highlander activities constantly disrupted EDUCATION IS LIBERATION - THE ROSA PARKS MURAL, by the segregationist Tennessee legislature, in 1961 the Graham-Parks School, Cambridge, MA, David Fichter, citizenship program was transferred to the Southern ©1986, detail of 10x25’ mural Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). By 1970, when Septima Clark retired at age 72, some ten thousand 1961 Freedom Riders, b.1938 citizenship school teachers trained by her and her col- 50TH ANNIVERSAY COMMEMORATIVE POSTER leagues had taught more than 100,000 Blacks to read and Joseph Portiglione, Eric Etheridge write and demand their rights as citizens. Poster published by Syracuse Cultural Workers 1961 Freedom Riders Portraits Founded in 1932 by activist and others as The Civil Rights Movement, roughly occurring 1954- a racially integrated education and training center, the 1968, was one of the most significant and powerful social Highlander Center focused in its early years on labor movements in US history. It didn’t end racism or inequal- education and the training of labor organizers. From the ity, but it invalidated many of the institutions (segregated 2 schools and housing, for example) that blocked progress era. Her efforts included the first successful civil rights towards true . The 1961 Freedom Riders were campaign to de-segregate lunch counters (Nashville); a pivotal part of the Movement. These African American the Freedom Riders, who de-segregated interstate travel women, along with African American men and whites, facilities; founding the Student Nonviolent Coordinating rode vulnerable buses through Alabama and Committee (SNCC); and the Selma Voting Rights Move- challenging the South’s defiance of the 1946 and 1960 ment campaign, which resulted in African Americans get- Supreme Court rulings which desegregated interstate ting the vote and political power throughout the South. travel and related facilities.

Determined to not let violence stop the Rides, a group PANEL D. of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) Fannie Lou Hamer, 1917-1977 members from Nashville left Birmingham for Montgom- COMMITTED CITIZEN ACTIVIST ery, the state capitol, on May 20. They were savagely Hamer became involved in the civil rights movement in beaten by a mob of 200 people at the bus station. But 1962 when she volunteered to attempt to register to vote. they kept coming. Wave after wave for almost seven By then 45– years old –and a mother,– Hamer lost– her job months. After a deal brokered by Attorney General Robert and survived a brutal beating as the price of her activism. Kennedy with Mississippi’s arch-segregationist Senator Despite this, she spoke frequently to raise money for the James Eastland, the Rides focused on Jackson, MS. Riders movement, and helped organize the Mississippi Freedom were immediately arrested and charged with “breach of Democratic Party to challenge white domination of the the peace”when they integrated the white and “colored” Democratic Party. In 1964, the MFDP challenged the waiting rooms, restrooms, and restaurants at the stations all-white Mississippi delegation to the Democratic Con- on arrival. The tenacity of the Riders pushed the Kennedy vention, and in l968, the Convention seated an integrated administration to enforce Federal desegregation laws challenge delegation from Mississippi. She is buried in in the South. This was a huge victory, and new life was her home town of Ruleville, MS, where her tombstone pumped into the Civil Rights Movement by these (in the reads, “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” words of Roger Wilkins) “true American heroes with a pas- sion for a fairer and more democratic nation.” , 1912-2010 ICONIC LEADER OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL OF Mississippi’s State Sovereignty Commission was es- NEGRO WOMEN tablished in 1956,two years after Brown v. Board of Originally trained as a social worker, Height was presi- Education, to preserve segregation against any outside dent of the National Council of Negro Women from 1957 efforts to change the status quo. Among its tasks was to 1997, overseeing a range of programs on issues like investigation of “integration organizations,” so when the voting rights, poverty and in later years AIDS. A longtime Riders began arriving, the Commission went into action executive of the YWCA, she presided over the integration compiling mug shots and arrest data, thus carefully (and of its facilities nationwide in the 1940s. Her career in civil unintentionally) preserving this remarkable piece of civil rights spanned nearly 80 years, from anti-lynching pro- rights history. tests in the early 1930s to the inauguration of President Obama in 2009. She was among the few in the mod- In the seven-month protest the Riders “galvanized every ern civil rights era to treat the problems of equality for branch of the Civil Rights Movement, binding its past to women and equality for African Americans as a seamless its future, its tactics to its soul.”(Diane McWhorter) The whole, merging concerns that had been largely histori- Riders faced the firebombing of their bus, brutal beatings, cally separate. and imprisonment at Mississippi’s infamous state peni- tentiary, but still they kept coming. Dorothy Cotton, b. 1930 FORCEFUL SCLC (SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP Portraits excerpted from 50th anniversary commemora- CONFERENCE) ORGANIZER tive poster published in 2011 by Syracuse Cultural Work- Dorothy Cotton was Educational Director of the SCLC, ers. Poster based on the book Breach of Peace by Eric recruiting candidates for training as citizenship school Etheridge and Joseph Portiglione. teachers, and monitoring the progress of the schools themselves. Cotton helped organize the students dur- Diane Nash, b.1938 ing the 1963 Birmingham Movement and its Children’s DARING STUDENT ORGANIZER AND STRATEGIST Crusade. Diane Nash was a leader and strategist of the student wing of the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement. She was Marian Wright Edelman, b. 1939 bright, focused, utterly fearless, with an unerring instinct FOUNDING MEMBER OF SNCC, POWERFUL CIVIL RIGHTS for the correct tactical move at each increment of the LAWYER, ADVOCATE FOR CHILDREN crisis. As a leader, her instincts were flawless, and she Mrs. Edelman, a graduate of and Yale was the kind of person who pushed those around her to Law School, began her career in the mid-60s when, as be at their best – that, or be gone from the movement. the first Black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, Nash’s campaigns were among the most successful of the she directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational 3 Fund office in Jackson, MS. In l968, she was counsel for PANEL E. the Poor People’s Campaign that Dr. Martin Luther King, Daisy Bates (1914-1999) Jr. began organizing before his death. She founded the COURAGEOUS PUBLISHER Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm Daisy and L.C. Bates started a weekly black newspaper, and the parent body of the Children’s Defense Fund the Arkansas State Press on May 9, 1941, and made it (CDF). For two years she served as the Director of the into an outspoken– voice– for racial– justice. They– crusaded Center for Law and Education at Harvard University and in against police brutality, and reported on slum housing, 1973 began CDF, the nation’s strongest voice for children job discrimination and injustice in the legal system. In and families. 1952, Mrs. Bates was elected president of the Arkansas Conference of the NAACP. Following the 1954 Brown v. Maya Angelou, b.1928, Board of Education decision, she pressured the Little Rock CELEBRATED POET AND AUTHOR school board to desegregate Central High. Despite being Maya Angelou’s path has taken her from the hardscrabble the target of violent and determined segregationists, Depression-era South, through life as a prostitute, Broad- she guided and advised the students, known as the Little way performer, coordinator for the SCLC, journalist in Rock Nine, when they attempted to enroll in 1957 at Little Egypt and Ghana in the heady days of decolonization, Rock High School. The Bates’ involvement in the Little and friend and comrade of and . Rock Crisis provoked retaliation from white advertisers, As one of the first African American women to publicly and the newspaper was forced to close in 1959. In 1960, discuss her personal life, she is known particularly for the Daisy Bates moved to NYC and wrote her memoir, The six volumes of her autobiography, and highly respected Long Shadow of Little Rock, which won a 1988 National as a spokesperson for Black people and women. Book Award.

Bernice Johnson Reagon, b. 1942, Gloria St. Clair Hayes Richardson b.1922 COMPOSER, MUSICIAN, SONGTALKER UNCOMPROMISING ORGANIZER The daughter of a minister, Bernice Johnson grew up in In the early 1960’s, SNCC targeted Cambridge, MD for a a strong tradition of singing sacred music. For her first campaign focusing on public accommodations. Local 11 years the church had no piano, and all singing was activists, among them , responded by accompanied only by hands and feet. This grounding in founding the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee a cappella music and a congregational song style was the (CNAC), the only adult-led affiliate in SNCC’s history. These bedrock on which she founded , local activists went beyond voting rights to focus on the popular African American women’s ensemble. ending discrimination in housing, education and hiring. She was Secretary of the NAACP at Albany State College CNAC demonstrations and counter-demonstrations were in 1959 as the sit-in movement erupted with students volatile, and on June 13, 1963 the National Guard was sitting-in at lunch counters and other racially segregated called in and martial law declared. Initially acquiescing establishments. Joining the SNCC (Student Nonviolent to a settlement negotiated by Robert Kennedy’s Depart- Coordinating Committee), she demonstrated her convic- ment of Justice (DOJ), Richardson withdrew her support tion that song and singing built group cohesiveness help- when the granting of civil rights to blacks was put up for ing to make political change. community referendum. She urged a boycott of the polls, From 1973-2004, she was the guiding hand of Sweet arguing that people’s human rights were not something Honey and “her” singing has made a path for many that should be voted upon by the general population. through countless changes in the struggles around ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality. b. 1933 COMMUNITY LEADER Nina Simone, 1933-2003 In 1964 Unita Blackwell, a former sharecropper, welcomed PIANIST, COMPOSER, SINGER SNCC organizers into her community of Mayersville, MS. Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, NC, Nina Simone She was typical of the many local women who played was an instinctive musician, an original, versatile singer, crucial roles in enlisting support for the movement pianist, arranger and composer. Her repertoire included among leaders in their communities, particularly among jazz standards, gospels and spirituals, classical pieces, ministers, who were often strongly opposed. She was folk, , pop, African chants, show tunes and her own later a member of the executive committee of the Mis- compositions. sissippi Freedom Democratic Party, and worked with the On March 24, 1965 she performed her protest song Mis- National Council of Negro Women. In 1992 she received a sissippi Goddam before 40,000 marchers at the conclusion MacArthur Fellowship. of the third Selma to Montgomery (AL) march. It was one “Who’s the people that really keeps things going on? It’s of many songs she either wrote and/or performed that women. The women is the ones that supports the deacon addressed civil rights, and Black liberation and identity. board. They holler the amen. The women is the ones that supports the preacher.... So in the black community the movement quite naturally emerged out of all the women 4 that carried out these roles.” – Unita Blackwell Communist Party, Davis points to as an example of “It was like Christopher Columbus: You’re discovering a country which successfully addresses social and eco- what’s already there. Well, that was discovering Unita nomic problems. In her view, democracy and Blackwell. She was already in charge, and she was just are more compatible than democracy and . waiting for us to recognize it.” – Civil rights organizer Charles Cobb Shirley Chisholm, 1924-2005 FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN ELECTED TO CON- Eleanor Holmes Norton b. 1937 GRESS, CANDIDATE (1972) FOR DEMOCRATIC NOMINA- LAWYER, FEMINIST TION FOR PRESIDENT, ADVOCATE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS, A SNCC organizer, Mrs. Norton participated in Missis- WOMEN’S RIGHTS, AND THE POOR sippi and in 1965 became the assistant Quote on poster: legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. She “... Prejudice and hatred built the nation’s slums, maintains headed the NYC Civil Rights Commission in the Lindsay them and profits by them.... Unless we start to fight and administration, and was a signer of the Black Woman’s defeat the enemies in our own country, poverty and racism, Manifesto, a classic document of the Black feminist and make our talk of equality and opportunity ring true, we movement. Appointed the first female Chair of the U.S. are exposed in the eyes of the world as hypocrites when we Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1977, she talk about making people free.” aggressively enforced constitutional protections against sex discrimination. In 1990, Norton, along with 15 other “Fighting Shirley Chisholm — Unbought and Unbossed” African American women and men, formed African-Amer- was her campaign slogan for New York’s 12th Congres- ican Women for Reproductive Freedom. She is currently sional District race in 1968. Chisholm won — and stayed serving her 11th term as the Congressional Representa- true to her words throughout her political career. She tive of the District of Columbia. opposed the Viet Nam War and weapons development at a time when it was unpopular to do so, and relentlessly , b. 1944 fought for the rights of women, children, minorities, and AUTHOR, POET AND ACTIVIST the poor. Walker’s most famous novel, The Color Purple, won both She was a founding member of the Congressional Black the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award. Her Caucus, holding it accountable as “the of Con- gress.” In 1972, Chisholm announced her candidacy for writings include novels, stories, essays and poems. They the Democratic presidential nomination, the first African focus on the struggles of African Americans, and particu- American woman to do so. Although she did not receive larly African American women, against societies that are the nomination, she won 28 delegates and 152 votes at racist, sexist, and often violent. Her writings emphasize the Democratic National Convention. the strength of Black women and the importance of African American heritage and culture. She is active in Barbara Lee, b. 1946 environmental, feminist, civil rights, and animal rights US CONGRESSWOMAN (D-CA), FORCEFUL PROGRESSIVE causes. VOICE First elected in 1998 to represent California’s 9th Congres- Coretta Scott King, 1927 – 2006 sional District, Lee has established a reputation for prin- ACTIVIST AND CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER cipled and independent stands. She cast the lone dissent- The widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King ing vote against George W. Bush’s use-of-force resolution, was an active partner with her husband in the civil rights 9/14/2001, denying him unanimous support to wage war movement. The Kings traveled and marched together against Afghanistan in retaliation for the September 11, whenever possible and Mrs. King organized and per- 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Penta- formed in a series of Freedom Concerts to raise funds gon. Lee works for social and economic justice, interna- for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Her tional peace, and civil and human rights. most prominent role may have been in the years after her husband’s 1968 assassination, when she took on the Cynthia McKinney, b. 1955 leadership of the struggle for racial equality herself. As a US CONGRESSWOMAN (D-GA), GREEN PARTY lifelong advocate for world peace, Mrs. King was one of PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE the founders of the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy Quote on poster: and in 1962 was a delegate at the Disarmament Confer- “In the fight against bigotry, we stand together, and we ence in Geneva, Switzerland. must. In the fight against injustice, we stand together, and we must. In the fight against intimidation, we stand Angela Davis, b. 1944 together, and we must. After all, a regime that would steal RADICAL, ACTIVIST SCHOLAR an election right before our very eyes will do anything to Davis, who was associated with the , all of us.” works for racial and gender equity and for prison aboli- In 1992, McKinney became the first African American tion, and is now a professor at the University of California, woman to represent in the US Congress. Though Santa Cruz. Although she is no longer a member of the a Democrat during President Clinton’s tenure, she voted 5 against NAFTA, supported a Palestinian State in the Occu- Press. pied Territories, and sparked controversy by criticizing US Anita Hill, b. 1956 policy in the Middle East, including policy regarding Iraq ATTORNEY AND SCHOLAR, BRAVE WOMAN before 9/11. She was defeated in the 2002 election, but In 1991 Anita Hill testified at the confirmation hearings was re-elected in 2004. A vocal critic of the government’s for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Her response to Hurricane Katrina, in 2007 she left the Demo- charges of sexual harassment focused national attention cratic Party to join the Green Party. on issues of race and gender in the workplace, though Thomas was confirmed and took a seat on the Court.

PANEL F. Lateefah Simon, b. 1977 Audre Lorde, 1934-1992 ADVOCATE FOR AT-RISK YOUTH WRITER AND ACTIVIST Quote on poster: A pioneering thinker active in the civil rights, antiwar, “I live in a country where we put children in shackles and in and feminist movements, in her own words Lorde was a concrete cells. Working together, with righteousness and “Black ,– mother,– warrior, –poet.” Through– her work hope, we can create a country that is about reverence and and life she confronted the injustices of racism, , reconciliation, not a world of shackles and concrete cells.” and . Fighting a battle with cancer that she MacArthur Fellow Lateefah Simon is a civil rights and documented in her highly acclaimed Cancer Journals, community leader who has advocated on behalf of com- Lorde died of the illness in 1992. munities of color, youth and women since her teenage Before she died, in an African naming ceremony she took years. At age 16, Simon was recruited to become part the name Gamba Adisa, meaning Warrior: She Who Makes of the Huckleberry Youth Program, a group for girls at Her Meaning Known. risk of incarceration. She became an outreach worker for the Center for Young Women’s Development, a peer-run Homage to Kitchen Table Press Elizabeth Barakah group helping young women to become self-sufficient Hodges, © 1997, mixed acrylic and collage and educated about their opportunities. In 1980, Audre Lorde telephoned Barbara Smith and said, Named executive director of the Center in 1998, she now “Barbara, we need to do something about publishing.” directs the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights (San Fran- Out of that conversation the two women co-founded cisco) and is a nationally recognized advocate for juvenile Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press to publish books by and criminal justice reform. women of color of all races/ethnicities, national origins, sexual orientations, and socio-economic classes. With the Ellen Blalock help of a multiracial collective, the women established COMMUNITY ARTIST AND STORY TELLER the world’s first publishing company run autonomously Ellen Blalock is a Syracuse, NY artist whose art examines by women of color. The name Kitchen Table was chosen and investigates the human experience. because, across the world, the kitchen is the center of the Angel Quilt by Ellen Blalock home and the place where women share their wisdom. fabric, beads, found objects, 98x82”, 2001 This quilt brings to life a story spanning 3 generations of Barbara Smith, b. 1946 the artist’s family, honoring family elders and sharing his- PIONEERING BLACK FEMINIST, AUTHOR tory in the hope that generations to come will also build Barbara Smith has opened up a national cultural and strong families. Poster published by Syracuse Cultural political dialogue about the intersections of race, class, Workers. sexuality, and gender. As an innovative critic, teacher, activist, lecturer, author, independent scholar, and pub- Cheryl Contee lisher, Barbara was among the first to define an African BLOGGER AND SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVIST American women’s literary tradition and to build Black Contee works with non-profit organizations and founda- women’s studies and Black in the US. She was tions to use social media to create social good. She is also among the authors of the Combahee River Collective State- a co-founder of the blog Jack and Jill Politics, writing as ment of 1974 that defined a vision for social change that “Jill Tubman.” was both anti-racist and anti-sexist. Kimberly Freeman Brown African American Women In Defense Of Ourselves LABOR ORGANIZER AND STRATEGIST Within hours of Anita Hill’s testimony before the Senate As executive director of American Rights at Work Brown Judiciary Committee on October 11, 1991, Elsa Barkley directs a national non-profit educational and outreach Brown, Barbara Ransby, and Deborah King had launched organization dedicated to promoting the freedom of a nationwide campaign to protest the events surround- workers to form unions and bargain collectively. ing Clarence Thomas’ nomination to the Supreme Court. In a few days they had gathered 1,603 Black women’s Majora Carter signatures for a three quarter page ad which appeared in URBAN VISIONARY, SUSTAINABILITY ADVOCATE the New York Times and six Black newspapers. This poster Carter is a radical voice in city planning who views urban commemorating the ad was published by Kitchen Table renewal through an environmental lens. The South Bronx 6 native draws a direct connection between ecological, ADDITIONAL INFORMATION economic and social degradation. Hence her motto: “Green the ghetto!” With her inspired ideas and fierce Americans Who Tell the Truth is a collection of 150 persistence, Carter managed to bring the South Bronx its first open-waterfront park in 60 years, Hunts Point Riv- portraits and quotes by Maine artist Robert Shetterly erside Park. Carter, who was awarded a 2005 MacArthur which demonstrate it has been the courage of dissi- “genius” grant, served as executive director of Sustain- dents that has won the freedoms Americans cherish. able South Bronx for 7 years, where she pushed both for www.americanswhotellthetruth.org eco-friendly practices (such as green and cool roofs) and, equally important, job training and green-related eco- nomic development for her neighborhood. Bread and Roses is a cultural project of the Services Employees International Union, SEIU 1199. Founded Imani Perry b. 1972 in 1979 in NYC by Moe Foner it brings dignity and SCHOLAR, ACTIVIST vitality to working people’s lives. Imani Perry is a Professor in the Center for African Ameri- can Studies at Princeton University. She is an interdisci- plinary scholar who studies race and African American National Women’s History Project (NWHP), found- culture using the tools provided by various disciplines ed in Santa Rosa, CA in 1980, provides information including: law, literary and cultural studies, music, and and training in multicultural women’s history for the social sciences. She is the author of More Terrible, More educators, community organizations, and others. Beautiful, The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality www.nwhp.org in the U.S as well as 2004’s Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in . Many of her articles in the areas of law, cultural studies, and African American studies are avail- SCW Working with over 1,000 artists since 1982 able for download at: imaniperry.typepad.com. SyracuseCulturalWorkers.com has published and dis- tributed an array of products that promote human and civil rights, peace, sustainability and economic justice. EXHIBIT CURATED AND PRODUCED BY SYRACUSE CULTURAL WORKERS USING ARCHIVAL POSTERS & ADDITIONAL SOURCES SyracuseCulturalWorkers.com

RELATED “Sisters of Freedom” PRODUCTS (visit: SyracuseCulturalWorkers.com) PANEL A: PANEL D • Lucy Parsons - book K826HM • Nina Simone - notecards C060CW • Sojourner Truth - notecards C702CW; postcards T710CW PANEL E • Harriet Tubman - notecards C735CW; • Barbara Lee - poster P545CW; notecards C857CW; postcards T733CW postcards T867CW

PANEL B PANEL F • Sarah Loguen Fraser - notecards C941CW • Ellen Blalock - poster “Angel Quilt” P591CW • Audre Lorde - poster P370CW; postcards T450CW PANEL C • Claudette Colvin - book K692HH • Rosa Parks - notecards C734CW; - poster Rosa Sat, Martin Walked, Obama Ran P658CW; cards C040CW

Visit our website for many other resources to complement this exhibit. –––––––––––SISTERS OF FREEDOM EXHIBIT SALE OR RENTAL––––––––––––– contact: [email protected] 315.474.1132 x102 (800.949.5139) SyracuseCulturalWorkers.com SoF Info Guide 5/13