I looked upon the regal visage of former Black Panther Party leader Kathleen Cleaver as she spoke at the opening of the Freedom Sisters Exhibit on Friday, July 23 at the Jimmy Carter Center in Atlanta.
Cleaver, now a renowned law professor and scholar at elite universities Emory and Yale, seems devoid of bitterness. I can’t even imagine the emotional wounds that were inflicted upon her and the rest of her fellow freedom fighting females. I can’t imagine how many police bullets Cleaver and Elaine Brown and her fellow Panthers had to dodge, or how many unauthorized arrests they had to endure, or how many beat-downs they suffered, or how many times their basic human rights were violated while trying to fully exercise them. All so that today we could live with dignity under a more equitable system.
Would I even be a functioning member of society anymore if my loved one had been blown to pieces in the driveway of my house, as Myrlie Evers’ husband Medgar was in June 1963? Would I have had the courage — and more importantly — the incredible restraint it would have taken to withstand the spits, slaps, the punches and insults in order integrate the University of Georgia, as Charlayne Hunter-Gault did?
Until now, these women warrior’s works were too often eclipsed by the shadows cast by their brothers in the struggle. This is why our freedom fighting sisters were honored recently in Atlanta. The Freedom Sister exhibit is in the midst of a nine-city, three-year tour around the nation to illuminate the monumental contributions of 20 African American women.
These women, including the five that are still alive, are receiving their long overdue props and are being honored in ways they have never been like their black male freedom fighters — even though they eagerly fought, bled and died on the front lines of America’s cultural wars with their male counterparts.
Following is just a partial list of the women who allowed us to sleep under the blanket of protection and freedom that we now enjoy — even though those hard-fought gains are eternally under attack by the enemies of justice and equality. –terry shropshire
Kathleen Cleaver (1945-) Radical revolutionary-turned-prominent legal scholar and educator.
Harriet Tubman (1820-1913) Conductor of the Underground Railroad.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862 to 1931) Fearless investigative journalist who risked her life to expose the evils of lynching.
Mary McCleod Bethune (1875 to 1955) College president and founder of the National Council of Negro Women.
Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005) The first black woman elected to Congress and first the African American to run for president, who declared herself “unbought and unbossed.”
Coretta Scott King (1927-2006) Wife of Martin Luther King Jr. who earned the title “First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement.”
Betty Shabazz (1936-1997) Educator and wife of Malcolm X.
Barbara Jordan (1936-1996) The first African American congresswoman from the South.
Rosa Parks (1913-2005) Parks deliberately sat in the wrong area of the public bus. It was fortuitous that she sat down in the same city where a 25-year-old unknown man had recently been installed as pastor: Martin Luther King Jr.
Charlayne Hunter-Gault (1942-) Before she became an award-winning journalist with the nation’s top media outlets, she helped integrate the University of Georgia.
