Two women who in many ways could not have been more different. One was establishment, one was grassroots. One was upwardly mobile, incredibly well educated, and the other one came from a background filled with such deprivation that to describe it as poor seems too grand. One was an obvious leader, the other was an unlikely and late in life luminary. Both of them changed the course of history, and neither one has been given their due. Hopefully these two biographies will help change that. Tamiko brown megan is 18 at the Harvard Institute and a history professor at Harvard University during her earlier book is courage to dissent the book we are going to be talking about today is civil rights queen. Kate Clifford Larson is a distinguished scholar whose earlier books include a biography of Harriet Tubman and the assassins accomplice. Today we will be talking about walk with me, a biography of Fannie Lou Hamer. Im going to assume many of you are like me. Maybe you have heard a little bit about Fannie Lou Hamer. Maybe you have not heard anything about constance modly. Im hoping will introduce us to the subjects of these books. Yours is, i think, unjustly lessknown. Will you tell us about constance motley and why you chose her . Ms. Brownnagin happy to. Thanks to all of you for being here. Im delighted to share about Constance Baker motley, who is a legendary civil rights lawyer who in her time was very wellknown. I set out to write about her because it is the case that people today do not know her, to the extent that they should. Legendary civil rights lawyer who litigated the cases that made it possible for all of us to be together today, regardless of race. Made it possible for me to be a law professor, and kate to be a scholar. Symbolically she was very important to professional women. To give you three points about her achievements, in addition to litigating cases like brown v. Board of education, James Meredith case, university of georgia, and the university of alabama, motley was a path breaker in politics. She was the First Manhattan borough president , as well as the first black female state senator in new york. And then she capstone her career by becoming the first black female female federal judge, appointed by Lyndon Johnson in 1966. As you can imagine, she has inspired a generation of lawyers, including women of color lawyers, like my late colleague, the first black woman appointed to the faculty of the harvard law school. And judge Ketanji Brown jackson, who cited Constance Baker motley as a role model. So, motley is a person who should be well known by all of us, because, as i said, she really did lay the groundwork for modern american society, changing the legal and social landscape. And Fannie Lou Hamer . Ms. Larson Fannie Lou Hamer rose up to become an incredible leader in the 1960s, but as was brought up, she had an entirely different life trajectory than constance. It cannot be underestimated the deprivation and poverty that she was born into. In 1917 the 20th child of a mississippi sharecropper, and her life was defined by a hunger , lack of access to health care, education. She attained a six grade education, and also the incredible violence that permeated life in mississippi. And she rose out of those circumstances as an adult to become a path breaker and to really change the landscape. She came out of the earth of mississippi and was very different than the elite civil rights organizers and figures we know so well today. The Martin Luther kings of the world and others who were managing and pushing the Movement Forward on the national level. She had this passion that she had to make a change, because her life was so profoundly difficult, and she wasnt so oppressed, and so many things had been taken from her that at a very late age she was about four years old, 44 years old she decided it was time she would make a difference. She was a deeply spiritual woman. Her faith was everything to her. Her family meant everything to her, and so did her community. That is where her activism started. And her faith fortified her to move forward when violence was perpetrated against her. Her body, her soul, and she went on to lead people around the country and inspire them. She became famous, for those of you who may know, in 1964 at the Democratic National convention in atlantic city. She was given a platform to talk about what was happening in mississippi, and how africanamericans were not represented there and denied the vote in mississippi. And her heartfelt speech that was so powerful it shook the people in the room that heard it. Men and women were crying, and people around the nation who saw the video of it later that evening in august 1964. It deeply moved all of them and changed people, so that it altered really, i believe, the Civil Rights Movement. President johnson was affected by what she said as well, and he went on to sign some very important legislation, including the 1960 five Voting Rights legislation, which has been powerful over the past few decades and is under threat today. So, her legacy lives on in Voting Rights campaigns around the country, and i think there are people just like Fannie Lou Hamer in our communities today, and they need to be recognized and supported, because they can make a world of difference for all of us. Ms. Ulaby one of the things i did not know that has been sitting with me is the words on her tombstone are a term she introduced into the cultural conversation, which is im sick and tired of being sick and tired. Ms. Brownnagin with constance my with constance motley, she grew up in new haven. Her father worked for skull and bones. Ms. Brownnagin he did. Ms. Ulaby then she was plucked, a wealthy white man learned i think what set her on the trajectory to Columbia Law School . Ms. Brownnagin right. Let me tell you about it, and a bit about her background. She was not a person of privilege. In fact, her family was a working class family. Her parents immigrated to this country from the west indies in the early 20th century. Virtually every male relative in her family worked for yell university, and she grew up in the shadow of yale, in new haven. Something i know in what in my work, one could imagine one is a workingclass black person growing up in new haven in the shadow of yale, there might be resentment. But for her family, their position was inspiring. Her father really read the privilege of the young man that he served at yale as a chef, into himself. And the parents thought of themselves as the father in particular, as superior. They were part of the british empire, and proud of that. They were ambitious in their own way, and yet Constance Baker was a young girl and not expected to go far. However, she was incredibly intelligent, ambitious, had teachers who introduced her to the work of wb to boyce and james weldon johnson. Debbie eb to boyce and james weldon w. E. B du bolis, and james weldon johnson. They told her women dont get anywhere in the law, and yet she was able to attend college and then law school because she gave a talk at a social club, a civic club in new haven, which happened to be attended by clarence blakeslee, who is a graduate of yale and a wealthy man, philanthropist who heard her speak, and said to her afterwards, why are you in college . Because you clearly should be. And he offered to pay for her college and law school tuition. And she said it was like a fairytale. That she could be plucked in that way. And it set her on this course where she was able to attend law school and got her first job out of law school with Thurgood Marshall at the ncaa naacp Legal Defense fund. During that time she was the only woman. And just to say a little bit about who she was as a person, she was reserved, she was graceful, elegant in her bearing, and a lot of this came from a sense of being connected to the british empire. She grew up in a homework you mother would play god save the queen. And one could, to see her was to understand she did feel herself to be different, and it was really important she felt this way. When she went down to the deep south to litigate these cases on behalf of people like Fannie Lou Hamer and others, she was subjected to the same kind of indignities as were her clients. So, she was not called mrs. By opposing counsel. There were judges who were not who would not even look at her. On the other end of the spectrum there were members of the black community who loved her. Called her a queen. The civil rights queen, because she was doing this work in the courthouse, translating the deprivation of these communities into the language of the law. I thought it was important to write her back into history. She represented Thurgood Marshall, the Birmingham Childrens marchers. She was a colleague to Thurgood Marshall, who thought very highly of her. I believe it was a sort of historical malpractice to not have her considered one of the greats in the same way that these men are. Ms. Ulaby who is Fannie Lou Hamer in that same way, as a person . Who was she . Ms. Larson i love what you said about motley translated the deprivation that a Fannie Lou Hamer was experiencing, discrimination, the violence, into the courtroom and back to the community. Because Fannie Lou Hamer, as i said, was the 20th child of jim and ella townsend. What i discovered is that seven of those children had died before was born. Before fannie lou was born. Her siblings talked about how it seemed fannie lou was the mothers favorite. She was raised and loved and cherished and protected in this really horrific environment as sharecroppers in mississippi. She survives childhood, and has a spotty education. And she grows up to be a very strong child. And taking care of her elderly parents wants her elder siblings had moved on. And during the Great Depression she struggled with them to feed themselves and work and earn money. And that informed her being, that struggle just gave her in an odd way this sense of strength and a nobility, even though she had very little education and had no resources whatsoever and was the poorest of the poor. So, when she became an adult she looked around at those indignities and they frustrated her. So, while she could not speak out, because speaking out meant she would be killed or hurt in some way, or fired from her job as a sharecropper, she found other ways to fight back. That meant, you know, picking the cotton and the boss would cheat the Cotton Pickers and underestimate how much the cotton weighed. And she would jiggle with the weights and change the weight so the sharecroppers were paid fairly. And the fellow sharecroppers that she was crazy to do that, because they knew if she got caught she would be in so much trouble. But she just knew what was right. As i said, she was profoundly faithful. She married another sharecropper in 1944. And they lived on this plantation outside of rural though ruralville, mississippi. They adopted two little girls and try to have children of their own, but fannie lou had difficulty conceiving. She had several stillbirths and miscarriages. So they raised these children and had deep love and passion for family. But it was a struggle every single day, and one day she was talking with mrs. Marlowe, the wife of a dacian owner. She told her she wife of she told her she should go to the local doctor and he could take care of the tumors that fannie lou was suffering from, and assured her this would help her get pregnant and carry a baby to term. So, hamer did this, but he sterilized her instead. They called at a mississippi appendectomy, because they did this to a lot of black women in the community. When that happened in 1961 it changed her dramatically. She went through a crisis that tested her faith, and some women would have just receded into their home and do nothing after that. But it angered her so much, and she knew she had to fight back. That doctor took something from her he had no right to take. And there was no recourse, because she was a black woman in mississippi, and she could not sue a white doctor. She became involved in the Civil Rights Movement. When the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Community committee arrived in ruralville, mississippi bob moses many of you probably know who he was. He was an activist dedicated to the snick. Any group of other Young Students and young people came to ruralville and ask the people there, what did they want the Civil Rights Movement to do for them and help them with . And they wanted to vote. This became the cause. And Fannie Lou Hamer eventually was able to register to vote and pass the onerous Voting Rights test. And she went on to keep fighting for the rights for everyone to be able to vote, because once she went and register to vote, the plantation owner evicted her from the plantation that very night. So, she was determined not to let that bring her down. She just had this fierceness about her. And some of her neighbors were very frightened for her and themselves, that she would bring a reign of terror down on them. That White Supremacists would become brittle and tried to kill them, which they did do. People fired shotgun blasts at the neighborhood all the time. But she had had enough. And after she was arrested for her role in the movement and brutally beaten and raped in the wynonna county jail in june 1963, she faced another crossroads. And she later said, they have been trying to kill me my whole life. Well, they might as well do it, but im not going to stop fighting for equal rights. As i said earlier, she went on to fight, and fight, and fight from the grassroots level. In those young people from the student nonviolent coordinating wowed by her. She was 20 years older than them, but she was inspired by them. She once said those students, she felt, was the new kingdom that had come to mississippi. That there was more christianity in those young people than she had seen in any church she had attended. So they inspired her to risk her life and she inspired them to risk their lives too. And she went on to really mobilize change from the ground up, grassroots, and challenge civil rights elites, as well as the White Supremacists who would circle her house every day, showing their shock nouns, threatening her. So, her legacy is so powerful today for the people that knew her, and i think a new generation needs to get to know her and know that you can come from the most obscure circumstances and the most difficult places and still rise up and be a leader and create change. Ms. Ulaby Fannie Lou Hamer was born and raised in her activism. [applause] and her activism was in mississippi. Its a sippy is where constance motley had one of her most extraordinary legal battles. Describe her role in desegregating . Ms. Brownnagin yes. I just want to pick up on something you said, and something that kate said. In many ways these women are contrasts, but it is also the case that both of them and something i deeply admire about motley and about hamer, they both had tremendous courage. It is moral courage, but also the case that motley, when she litigated in alabama and mississippi in particular, she did so under threat of her life. This is the case when she traveled from her new york city apartment down to mississippi 22 times in the span of 18 months. Ms. Ulaby with a small child at home . Ms. Brownnagin yes, with her son at home, with her husband back in their apartment. And just imagine doing that. You would only do Something Like that if you felt yourself on a mission. And she did it because, first of all Thurgood Marshall signed the case to her. They were in the office at ldf and received this message from James Meredith, who said he wanted to challenge segregation in his home state. Thurgood marshall said, this man has got to be crazy. That is your case. It was because of the violence in mississippi. The threat the absolute stranglehold of White Supremacy on people of the state. And nevertheless, molly went down to mississippi, she represented James Meredith. It was a terribly difficult case for also its of reasons. First of all, the fear and anxiety that was provoked by being a black person, coming down from new york, you know, the antithesis in many ways of mississippi. It was considered daring to come to a courtroom, a federal court room, and stand up. Motley stood nearly six feet tall. And claimed that a black man should be able to enter the university of mississippi. And she did that and she did it despite hostility from her co counsel who refused to recognize her. He would call her that woman, and motley said to the judge, who himself was a segregationist but on the spectrum that even he knew that was wrong. So, he admonished the opposing counsel when motley said, he should call me by my name, mrs. Motley. The woman from new york is what he ended up calling her. Another point i want to make about the ways in which this was a difficult case, meger evers would pick motley up from the airport and he would take her to the courthouse. She stayed with evers and his wife and children when she was in mississippi. They were her community. Feeding her and they experienced the terror of mississippi together. When they were traveling to the courthouse more than one time, medgar said to her, do not look back. We are being followed. The state police are trailing them as they are traveling down the highway in mississippi and he says to her, put that legal pad inside your new york times. You do not want to be stopped and have evidence that youre doing civilrights work. That happened time and time again. She said to medgar evers when she was staying in their house there were some bushes, hedges close to the house. She said, you need to cut those down because someone could harm you. That is exactly what happened. He was assassinated a few months after she left for the last time, after battling in court. She would win positions in court and the court of appeals just would not countenance what was inevitable. Ultimately, after being in court time and time again, meredith was able to enter ole miss. But that was hardly the end of the story. He met a riot when he entered and two people were killed, all with medgar evers trying to enter ole miss. It was quite a trial. She had to buck him up several times. There were times when he had had enough. And she brought him out of the state into her new york city apartment where he could essentially taste freedom. And she got him through that, which illustrates how she not only was working in the courtroom, but outside the courtroom. Helping her clients to continue in this perilous fight. Ms. Ulaby there is a great moment in the story. The book is so incredibly researched. I like the little details, like James Meredith had when he was admitted into the university of mississippi. He had to be in a twobedroom room because his bodyguards needed their own room. And you tell this incredible story of how there was such fear. It is incredible not only did they all survive physically but mentally. He needed to take a break and there was fear he might flunk out. Constance motley said, you need to study. He said, i need to go dancing. [laughter] ms. Brownnagin thats right. She brought him up to the apartment. He stayed with her and ultimately, he said that he needed to be with his friends and dance. He needed not to feel like a soldier every day, which was what was required to be part of these landmark cases. Ms. Ulaby can you tell us a little bit, kate, about how Fannie Lou Hamer challenged the civil rights leads and whether these two titans of the Civil Rights Movements crossed paths . Ms. Larson i do not think they did. Certainly, hamer would have been aware of motley. Especially with her work in mississippi and hamer knew medgar evers. She was aware of things going on in the movement. And i think she probably paid special attention, i am imagining, because another woman was in the trenches fighting like she was. Ms. Brownnagin thats right. I do not think they knew each other, but certainly, they knew of each other. I am so interested to hear about the challenge to the civil rights elite. I know the hamer story, including one line i had in my earlier book where she says, there is nothing she respects less in naacp. Ms. Larson i know. Ms. Brownnagin you tell the story. Ms. Larson she did say that, which is interesting because, during the 1950s, she tried to get people to sign up to be members of the naacp. But it was elite middleclass men that ran most of the chapters, specifically in mississippi. She tangled with some of the elites and the movement once she became nationally known. She was in atlantic city. Martin luther king and abernathy and all of the group around king, they disrespected her because she was not well educated. She had a fairly strong mississippi delta accent. She was very poor, so her clothing did not meet their standards. They even said that directly to her, that she was an of harassment. Look what you are wearing. You should go home. You are not going to say that to Fannie Lou Hamer, for sure. [laughter] she was not going to take any of that. She was so grassroots she could not relate to the elites in the movement. Martin luther king could not relate to her, despite how we think of him as this grassroots organizer. He was not. It was all the people below and under him in communities across the country that were the organizers. And he was the figurehead and inspiring leader. But he and hamer taught past each other. In atlantic city, hamer was there with a group from mississippi challenging the right of the mississippi all White Democratic Party to be seated on the Convention Floor and vote for president johnson as the nominee of the Democratic Party that year. And she belonged to a more Diverse Group of people that wanted to represent mississippi. So, they have this challenge. Martin luther king was there to support them, but he did not have a feel for the people. He inspire people and he spoke eloquently, but he read his speech before hamer got on stage and she was the one that wowed everyone personally. The press followed king around until they heard hamer speak and then they could not get enough of Fannie Lou Hamer. She spoke to people across the Country Living in circumstances like her. And so, some of those, mostly men around king, felt threatened by her rising power. They did not want her to have the strong voice that she had. But there was no denying Fannie Lou Hamer. The nation really responded to her. She also had this amazing singing voice. So, she used that so effectively as part of her rhetoric, as part of her speeches, her presence. People felt connected to her once she would start to sing. She had these qualities that many of those men did not have. So, there was a big divide between, you know, those elite leaders who are absolutely necessary, and she was just another part of the movement we often forget about. Ms. Brownnagin if i can piggyback on that comet and talk about motleys relationship to the elite, she was one of them. Some of the things that she did were consistent with the attitudes that kate is discussing. For instance, in the university of alabama case, there were two plaintiffs originally. One of them was pollyanne who was a good friend of lucy. Pollyanna meyer ran into trouble when the university found out she had become pregnant before she was married. Her husband had some runins with the law. On the basis of morals, they said she was not qualified to apply, much less attend, the university of alabama. The naacp Legal Defense fund, including motley and the local lawyer, dropped her. There was no effort made to stand up for pollyanne meyer. The reason is in these legal cases in particular, the plaintiffs needed to be the best in the community, as was understood. The politics of respectability, which motley certainly believed in, were very relevant to the types of plaintiffs who were chosen and could be successful. For instance, in the university of georgia case, one of the plaintiffs was Charlene Hunter gault who had done really well in school and she was very beautiful. She was easier, i guess you would say, for some to accept. But the thing about motley, she also had trouble with some of the men in the naacp establishment. In fact, after she litigated her first case mississippi, which was on behalf of black teachers a salary equalization case she marched into Thurgood Marshalls office and said she was napping paid what she should be paid. [laughter] and she did not have the title she deserved. He eventually did give her a raise and was working with the and aa cp national and the naacp national, but it was not easy for her at all. One of the deepest valleys in her life occurred in 1961 when she was passed over for Thurgood Marshalls job once he was appointed to the federal court. She wanted to be director counsel. She thought that she deserved it. But she did not get it. It went to burke, who was a terrific lawyer, supporter of the Civil Rights Movement. He also was a white man. Motley thought both race and gender had to do with why she was passed over. And so, there are two sides of the coin and all kinds of gradations. I love juxtaposing the stories because it shows the different experiences and how gender is very relevant to historical memory of the movement, and also whom we should understand as leaders of the movement. It was not just the men giving the speeches and rallying the crowds. As important as that was and it was not just Thurgood Marshall, who famously was extroverted and charming and the alpha male. It was also these women. Motley was reserved. She was now trying to put herself out in front. She was just doing the work and it is important to appreciate all parts of the spectrum of leadership. Ms. Ulaby we have a few minutes for questions if anybody has any. I am intrigued by the relationship between ms. Motley and polly murray. With a contemporaries . Especially considering what you brought up about leadership at the time they were both practicing . Ms. Brownnagin they were friends and they supported one another. At the same time, motley was able to go further within the context of the naacp establishment and the legal establishment and be received better than polly murray was. As you know, polly murray had a hard time getting her legal theories accepted by the men of the naacp. Although, as they thought about it, they decided they would use it because it was so great. They did know each other. They loved each other. When motley was appointed to the court, polly murray sent her a note saying, hooray for our side. We finally done it. They thought it would be so great for her to have one of their own on the court. Thank you for that question. When Fannie Lou Hamer was so badly beaten in prison, a yale law student Elinor Holmes helped her get out of prison. She was in there with Lauren Sciacca as well. Those injuries she had were throughout her life. Ms. Larson they contributed to her early death. She died of Breast Cancer in 1977, but she had been suffering from Kidney Disease not disease, but a damaged kidney from the beating she took. The people around her were quite amazing. Eleanor Holmes Norton actually was very close to hamer and later when hamer had a miss ectomy, norton helped her get prosthesis because she could not afford to do that. Yes, she was the young lawyer that helped bail her out of jail in june 1963. How old was hamer when she died . Ms. Larson she was 59 years old. Ms. Ulaby next question. First about, i am happy you mentioned gender and the Civil Rights Movement when you were discussing these two wonderful women. In my research more with the antislavery movement, we talk about how even if you are fighting for the same thing, you might not agree how to fight for it. So, i was happy to hear you talk about that. But also, sometimes women in particular field a special burden feel a special burden to bring womens rights to the forefront. They represent two constituencies in the fight for anyones rights. Can you talk about whether or not either of these women felt a burden because of their gender . Ms. Brownnagin i can tell you that motley, when she became a new york city politician, said when people called her a feminist that she was not. So, she made a choice, publicly, to put distance between herself and the womens movement. Both because she did not think it was necessarily representative of her and the experiences of other black women. But also because, in the context of politics, when she already had so much against her, she was not going to take on feminism too. And yet, as i said before in reference to myself and kate many other women, she was important. When she joined the court, decided quite a few cases that opened the doors of law firms to women, to journalists. And so, she was a very strategic person and had to be supportive of womens issues but in a way that enabled her to move in these circles she needed to move in. Ms. Larson i have to say the same about Fannie Lou Hamer. She would not have described herself as a feminist. Actually, she belonged to the National Organization of women and she helped organize the black womens caucus, and she was colleagues with Shirley Chisholm and marlee evers. But she was a very conservative woman and they would have called her a conservative feminist. She was antiabortion, which is interesting. Because before she was sterilized she had helped other women access Abortion Services in mississippi. She was antibirth control, too. Kind of really blew the minds of all feminist women in the late 1960s and early 1970s. What do you mean . She was very conservative. I do not think she looked at gender as a burden. It was who she was and she was fighting as a woman for rights for herself and everybody. And she was particularly protective of black men because she watched the violence that was disproportionately visited upon black men in mississippi. She was very protective of her husband and other men in the community. Ms. Ulaby any other questions will have to be addressed to the authors as they sign books after the session. I wanted to say, at a moment when these forces of misogyny and White Supremacy feel on the rise, when the Political Climate feels daunting, i wanted to thank you for bringing the message of both of these women into 2022. Ms. Larson thank you. Ms. Brownnagin thank you. [applause] in colorado. Host Helen Raleigh is the epitome of the american dream, born and raised in communist china, she came to the u. S. As a college student. She didnt know anybody and she had less than a hundred dollars in her pocket. Like millions of immigrants with a craving for freedom, helens pocket was light, but her dreams were rich. Through a combination of hard work and scholarships, she earned her masters degree in business economics from the State University of new york and an mba from the university of wyoming. The author of several books including her firstoo
vimarsana.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.