Interpreting African American Women's History Through Historic Landscapes, Structures, and Commemorative Sites

Barbara A. Tagger

Yet I found few, if any, historic sites that specifically recognized the contributions of women to the modern civil rights movement. Even more disturbing was the fact that of the 375 units of the National Park Service, only two, the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site in Washington, D.C. and the Maggie Lena Walker National Historic Site in Richmond, Virginia, commemorate African American women’s contributions to U.S. history. 

More than 800 sites are listed in the voluminous African American Historic Places, a publication that identifies African-American historic places recognized with National Historic Register or National Historic Landmark status. Of these, approximately fifty National Historic Register and National Historic Landmarks are designated for the contributions of African American women. The publication features only three women, listed under the section “Civil Rights Leaders”: Mary McLeod Bethune, Mary Church Terrell and Elizabeth Harden Gilmore, with sites located in Washington, D.C. and West Virginia respectively.

Obviously missing from this publication is the courageous Rosa Parks. Her refusal to move to the back of a city bus is commemorated by Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where, under the leadership of the young Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights activists held rallies during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Neither Parks nor King acted alone, however. Dr. Mary Fair Burks and JoAnn Gibson Robinson of the Women’s Political Council planned the bus boycott with female members of the Montgomery Improvement Association, insisting that mass demonstration would bring social change.

In Atlanta, Georgia, the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site and Preservation District also offers an opportunity to learn more about the modern civil rights struggle. The Auburn Avenue community represents African American success in building prosperous neighborhoods within the confines of racial segregation. “Sweet Auburn”, as the Avenue was affectionately called, shaped numerous prominent black professionals, entrepreneurs, social activists, religious leaders, and politicians. Some gained local leadership, while others like Martin Luther King, Jr., received national attention for their efforts in the advancement of African Americans. Yet women active in the civil rights movement are virtual unknowns. Ella Ramsey Martin’s attempt to win a seat in the Georgia State Legislature as Republican candidate is rarely mentioned. Moreover, Ella Baker’s essential contributions as executive director of the SCLC (headquartered on Auburn Avenue) and organizer of the SNCC, are often overlooked in discussions of SCLC activities. 

Indeed, “Sweet Auburn” served as a paradigm for African American tenacity and fortitude. Women contributed to every phase of its development. The few original structures that remain along the Auburn Avenue corridor are evidence of this. Geneva Haugabrooks, Carrie Cunningham, Ella Ramsey Martin, Scottie “Ma” Sutton, and Emily Cox are just a few of the prosperous female entrepreneurs and social activists who established business followings on Auburn. Still other women made their mark on the community, but little or no information about them is conveyed at the Birthplace. Lugenia Burns Hope, founder of the Neighborhood Union, Emmeline Scott of the Atlanta Daily World newspaper, and Jennie C. Williams and Alberta Williams King, grandmother and mother of Martin Luther King, Jr., are women whose essential contributions to the health of the community are overlooked.

Similarly, Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Edmund Pettus Bridge, sites of the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March of 1965, commemorate the efforts of African Americans in Selma, Alabama and nearby rural counties to regain and secure voting rights denied to them for more than half a century. Although the efforts of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), under the leadership of Bernard Lee, Hosea Williams and John Lewis received more attention, local participants and organizations, namely the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL), spearheaded the struggle. Amelia Boynton Robinson and Marie Foster led voter registration drives and organized their communities in a challenge that ultimately led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Relatively few sites recognize the role of African American women in history, at the local, state, or national level. Since there are so few places available to learn about African American women’s history, where do we start? 

The first place to begin is with established landscapes and structures. In most instances, African American women’s history is present within the confines of urban and rural landscapes. Intertwined in these areas are national historic sites, districts, landmarks and registered historic structures that offer a wealth of information about how African American women worked to build influential, independent communities in response to racial segregation. Richmond’s black business community, embodied in the Maggie Lena Walker House, is one example.

Moreover, these areas demonstrate that African Americans refused to accept civil and political injustices imposed upon them by social custom and legal action. Thus, for more than a half century, African American women sought civil rights through work with organizations like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), National Urban League (NUL), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), SCLC and SNCC. The national organizations depended on state and local associations. African American women, especially, played significant roles in community leadership as they led the crusade to combat social segregation by forming neighborhood associations and civic and educational leagues. Their desire to overcome civil injustices was further demonstrated through the formation of state civil rights associations. Black men and women recognized that the ballot was the key to racial equality. Hence, they created voter leagues which helped educate African Americans about their political rights, and to elect candidates to governmental positions. (Editor's note: see sidebar)

African American women’s activism on the national and local levels is seldom celebrated. Repeatedly we are told that Black women were and continue to be the pillars of African American society; yet, we do not readily interpret and celebrate their strength, courage and fortitude in scholarly and general writings. Their lack of visibility and sometimes anonymity compels us to consistently raise issues about their individual and collective identity, and more importantly, their participation in American society. If we do not ask or insist on learning about their roles, their accomplishments will never be viewed as part of the story, but rather as an exception to the story. Mary McLeod Bethune achieved recognition as founder of Bethune-Cookman College, head of the National Council of Negro Women, director of the Negro Division of the National Youth Administration, and member of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet.” Her home on the grounds of Bethune-Cookman College, in Daytona, Florida, is a National Historic Landmark; as is the headquarters of the National Council of Negro Women, (and her home), in Washington, D.C. Yet her work would not have been successful without the support of others. Her supporters were ordinary women—wives, sisters, mothers, grandmothers, domestics, professionals, entrepreneurs, educators, politicians, humanitarians, and scholars—called to perform extraordinary deeds. Certainly, each contributed in her own way to the improvement of living conditions for themselves, their families and fellow human beings.

We must continually insist on knowing more about African American women’s role in history. We must continue to raise such questions as: what did women do? What were the roles of women in this particular event? What contributions did they make? What were their reactions and attitudes toward critical issues or events? Scholars are slowly uncovering African American women’s role in history. Interpretation and reinterpretation of major events in American history and African American history, in particular, have recently become more attentive and inclusive of women’s roles. This new sense of scholarship will boost the public recognition that many of these women rightly deserve, encourage existing national, state and local historic sites and landmarks to enrich their narratives by including these intriguing stories, and lead to the preservation of many more historic homes and buildings associated with African American women’s history.  

Henderson, Alexa B. and Eugene Walker. Sweet Auburn: The Thriving Hub of Black Atlanta, 1900-1960.

Kuhn, Clifford M., et al. Living Atlanta: An Oral History of the City, 1914-1948. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1990.

Miller, Page Putnam, ed. Reclaiming the Past: Landmarks of Women’s History. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1992.

Robinson, Amelia Platts Boynton. Bridge Across Jordan. Washington, D.C.: Schiller Institute, Inc., 1991.

Robinson, JoAnn Gibson. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1987.

Savage, Beth L., editor. African American Historic Places: National Register of Historic Places. Washington, D.C.: The Preservation Press, National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1994.

United States Department of the Interior, Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail Study: A Study of the Voting Rights March of 1965. National Park Service, April 1993.

Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965. New York: Penguin Books, 1987. 

Barbara Tagger is an historian in the National Park Service Southeast Region, Atlanta, GA. She is currently completing her doctoral degree in urban history and African American studies at Emory University.