In the article Strong People and Strong Leaders: African American Women and the Black Freedom Struggle, historian Mary Ellen Curtin traces Black female activism from the early decades of the Civil Rights Movement through the Women’s Liberation Movement.  Curtin argues that Black women are neglected in scholarship about the formative years of the Black freedom struggle. When women are mentioned, their importance is often relegated to grassroots organizing, which can understate their role in leadership.  Women asserted themselves as community leaders and activists while a Black female middle class emerged as early as the late nineteenth century. Curtin traces the lives of both well-known and more obscure Black female activists to highlight the many different versions of activism, empowerment, and feminism that have emerged over the years.

Curtin attempts to clarify the notion that Civil Rights organizations were inherently sexist because of their patriarchal religious roots and strict hierarchical structure.  Charles Payne argues that religion played a large role in the lives for many female activists because they, “either lacked fear or possessed faith”.  Curtin posits that his argument of a male leader/female organizer paradigm has had a large impact on scholarship of the subject. Curtin then explains Belinda Robnett’s concept of a Bridge leader, which were, “women who had leadership positions but whose strength lay in their ties with local organizations rather than widespread recognition”.  This suggests that while there is truth to Payne’s argument, it is oversimplified.  Women may not have held many leadership positions on the national level, but on the local level they played a critical role. By placing these works in conversation, Curtin corrects a fallacy about women’s everyday importance in the movement.

I appreciated that this article took time to acknowledge women that did not fit the traditional activist mold. Daisy Bates was outspoken and uncompromising when she changed Arkansas’ police force by writing about the murder of a Black army sergeant by a white police officer in 1942.  Gloria Richardson took up a direct action campaign and refused to bend to local political pressure in the early 1960s.  She was known for her militancy, which made her an enemy of many civil rights groups trying to be more moderate to gain widespread support. Curtin also talks about the patriarchal structure of the Black Nationalist and Black power groups that emerged towards the end of the Civil Rights movement.  By acknowledging the role of these more radical women who came just before and just after the largely studied mainstream Civil Rights Movement, Curtin paints a more comprehensive and informative picture of Women’s role in the black freedom struggle.  She also leaves article open ended, and suggesting that work still needs to be done on Black women’s organizations and their complicated history, which I think is an extremely effective way to end a historiography.

— Courtney Defelice