African Americans' struggle for civil rights started in 1619 when Africans first landed in Jamestown, VA.

Since that time, African American women have been, and still are instrumental in the shaping of America and in the journey of African Americans from slavery to freedom.

They have demonstrated a strong and persistent commitment to promote civil rights and equal opportunities for themselves, their families, and their race.

African American women have petitioned the courts, resisted slavery and its tyranny, formed abolition and self-help societies, published newspapers, agitated for women's rights, campaigned against lynching, and forged the modern civil rights movement.

The African American woman has the responsibility of maintaining the "inner strength," the culture, and heritage of the African American community in a society that has continually oppressed her.

Maria Stewart, Ida B. Wells Barnett, Sojouner Truth, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Rosa Parks are only a few of the women who have been in the forefront to promote civil rights and equal opportunities.

The modern Civil Rights Movement was the beginning of a new era. African Americans campaigned actively and aggressively against Jim/Jane Crow laws, segregation, and for their right to be recognized as first class citizens.

The Civil Rights Movement was relevant to African American women for several reasons. First, they exercised a traditional form of informal religious leadership. Second, women of all ages and classes joined together to utilize their modest resources and special talents for the cause.

Finally, they served as a living testament to the strength of African American culture and the depth of southern racial oppression (Jones, 1985). The Civil Rights Movement represented a continuance in the commitment African Americans have had toward freedom for themselves, their families and their race.

Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat to a white person; Daisy Bates who struggled to integrate Central High School; and JoAnn Robinson and the Women's Political Council who called for a city-wide bus boycott, are only a few of the women who motivated the Civil Rights Movement.

They had prominent roles in the boycotts, demonstrations, in the education of adults and children, in acts of civil disobedience, and in voters' registration drives conducted by SCLC, CORE, and SNCC. African American women provided grassroot support for the movement.

Davis (1982) and Jones (1985) have defined African American women as militant, outspoken and understanding women, who worked all day, prepared a feast for a dozen or more folks, and sat on the front porch with a shotgun in their lap to protect the folks lounging in their homes.

The contributions made to the Civil Rights Movement by African American women must take into account their formal and informal leadership responsibilities.

Women such as Ella Baker, Bernice Reagon, Diane Nash, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Gloria Richardson, all held some type of formal and informal leadership responsibility.

Ella Baker, Director of SCLC, realized that "as a woman, an older woman . . . there was no place for (her) to come into a leadership role," therefore, her role was informal and behind the scenes.

This did not prevent her from making a stand against the subservient roles women had in the movement. Rather it encouraged her to focus her energies in developing the local leadership among women in the community.

The most important contributions made to the Civil Rights Movement were by women who lived in the back rural communities of the South.

Victoria Gray, Annie Devine and Fannie Lou Hamer are only a few of the women leaders who lived in these communities, and wage their battle for dignity and freedom on a day-to-day basis, far from the glory and glamour of the media and the civil rights hierarchy.

These women opened their homes to SNCC and CORE workers and other volunteers, and served as adopted mothers and spiritual leaders (Williams, 1986). They were also targets of intimidation, but this did not stop them from accepting the challenge of building a new South.

The African American woman's struggle to attain civil rights for herself, her family and her community is a profound chronicle of her commitment to a world of new possibilities and the perpetuation of the positive visions for African Americans.

Listed below are a few of the African American women who have been involved in the Civil Rights Movement past and present:

Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Ida B. Wells Barnett, Sojouner Truth, Pauli Murray, Johnnie Tillmon, Maria Stewart, Moranda Smith, Mary Church Terrell, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Autherine Lucy

Mary McLeod Bethune, Charolette Forten, Ella Baker, Modjeska M. Simkins, Ruby Hurly, Shirley Chisolm, Margaret Bush Wilson, Cardiss Collins, Unita Blackwell

Maxine Waters, Sarah Redmond, Mary Francis Berry, Angela Davis, Septima P. Clark, Dorothy I. Height, M. Edleman, Charlotte Brown, C. Delores Tucker.