Black American Women’s Struggle for Civil and Political Rights (1920-1960)

Abstract

The United States was founded by people with clear ideals. People from all over the World came to take profit from this land of freedom; however, the importation of Black slaves from Africa in colonial times was followed by the harshest forms of discrimination, which were opposite to the ideals proclaimed by the founding fathers. The American society was supposed to be based on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, all of which benefited for whites only.

Black women were brought to the American colonies against their will; enslaved and harshly exploited by white people, they had spent an existence dominated by race and gender oppression that lasted for more than four centuries. Being long denied their basic civil rights, these women struggled to advance their race. African American women fought for the inclusion in the women’s suffrage, and their activism would lead to the Civil Rights Movement, that revealed an important role played by Black women. Beginning from the fifties, they sought to achieve voting rights, equality in public places, and political power.

This dissertation aims first at examining the changing status and roles of Black women during the major events that changed American society in the twentieth century. Next, it will investigate the development of their social, economic and political lives during the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties. It will also reveal their actions to found a Black Feminist Movement. This work has also the purpose of demonstrating that even if Black women have remained a long time second class citizens, it was their activism in the Civil Rights Movement, and their resistance to persistent discrimination, which finally gave them the opportunity to be considered as full American citizens.