This section on African-American women, and women and race first went on-line in February 2005 on our old website.
We welcome your comments, corrections and additions: info(at)wloe.org

Archival and institutional sources of information on and works by African-American women (links updated Feb. 2012)

Educational resources: includes lesson plans and educational resources (links updated Feb. 2012)

See also:
Martin Luther King, Jr. Read a profile of his life, our report on his birthday, 15 January, and Grace Lee Bogg's talk and article, NOW IS THE TIME, on the importance of his life and philosophy today.

Rosa Lee Parks, "mother" of the modern civil rights movement, passed away on 24 October 2005 at age 92. See transcript of an historic interview with Rosa Parks, in the midst of the 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott.

2012: New from Maria Gilardin's TUC Radio

Black History Special
Fred Gray
CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY FOR ROSA PARKS AND MARTIN LUTHER KING
This is a rare recording of a man who remained in the background.
Without him the civil rights movement might have taken a different turn.
When Fred Gray's friend Rosa Parks was arrested in 1955 for violating the segregated seating ordinance on a Montgomery bus, 26-year-old Martin Luther King, was chosen to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and 24-year-old Fred Gray became his--and the movement's--lawyer. Gray's legal victory in the federal courts ended the boycott 381 days later.

In this program Fred Gray tells his story. He grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, and had to leave the state to finish his education because blacks could not then attend Alabama law schools. He returned to his hometown in 1954 and became one of two black lawyers in the city. His first case was that of the 15 year old Claudette Colvin. Nine months before Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat on the Montgomery bus, Claudette did the same. Fred Gray won scores of civil rights cases in education, voting rights, transportation, and health. He represented the Freedom Riders, the Selma-to-Montgomery marchers, and the victims of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.

Recorded at the Republican Roundtable in San Francisco, July 2009.  It was a Republican, Peter Buxtun, who blew the whistle on the Tuskegee study. Poor black sharecroppers were led to believe they were being treated, while in reality the study recorded the progression of untreated Syphilis. Buxtun is now the events coordinator for the Republican Roundtable,  TUC Radio was there by invitation.
For a broadcast quality mp3 version of this 29 minute program click HERE
Code A338CD  To order a 45 minute CD click here $10.00
Code A338DVD  To order a 45 minute film on DVD click here $14.00
29 second Preview/Promo

VOICES: Strip mining Black History Month

By Jeff Biggers, New America Media

"As schools, communities and politicians across the country celebrate Black History Month in February, they will be remiss if their lessons don't include the coal fields of Fayette County, West Virginia. There, in the 1890s, a teenage African American followed his brothers into the coal mines, serving what Carter Woodson called his "six-year apprenticeship." In the evenings, the young Woodson would gather with other black coal miners, read the newspaper, and listen to their extraordinary stories of life underground, and their struggles during the Civil War and Reconstruction Era."
Read full posting here

From Facing South, The Institute for Southern Studies