adjectiveverb:mariavontraphouse:zhiingenjigeshki:clintisiceman:Gloria Richardson pushes a national g
adjectiveverb:mariavontraphouse:zhiingenjigeshki:clintisiceman:Gloria Richardson pushes a national guard bayonet out of her face during a 1963 civil rights protest in Maryland.“boy bye”This is the lady who helped lead the desegregation movement on Maryland’s Eastern Shore!(I’m a white Marylander and we like to pretend that segregation and racism happened elsewhere and we just went along with what DC said. Which has never been true.)Anyway, Gloria Richardson:Her efforts to desegregate her town lead to the founding of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee, the first official adult-led SNCC affiliate. She was the spokesperson.“I think I turned out like a lot of women in Cambridge…They did their cooking and ironing, but I don’t remember them walking two steps behind anybody, and I think the men knew that. Later most of the members of our civil rights group were women…When we were attacked at demonstrations, they were the ones throwing stones back at the whites.”The National Guard occupied the town 1963-1964, the longest continuous deployment since Reconstruction.She was honored onstage at the March on Washington, but, like other honored women, wasn’t allowed to speak to the crowd. She was handed the microphone, said hello, and the mic was taken away from her.[above from below sources and x]“To the dismay of the traditional upper-class Black elite — long accustomed to being the community leaders — CNAC adds a factory worker and a welfare recipient to its executive committee rather than additional ministers, a move that signals CNAC’s committment to the issues and priorities of those at the bottom of the economic ladder. And CNAC rejects the gradualist, conciliatory, approach favored by the Black elite.” [x]She also lead the boycott of a desegregation referendum, because “A first-class citizen does not beg for freedom. A first-class citizen does not plead to the white power-structure to give him something that the whites have no power to give or take away. Human rights are human rights, not white rights.” [x]And there’s this:Cambridge students Dwight Cromwell and Dinez White, both 15, lead many of the protests. They are arrested and charged with “Disorderly Conduct” for peaceably praying on the sidewalk outside a segregated facility. They are held without bail, and then condemned to indefinite incarceration in the state juvenile prison — a sentence that could keep them in jail for 6 years until they reach 21. Dinez writes a “Letter From a Jail Cell,” in which she tells her fellow protesters: “They think they have you scared because they are sending us away. Please fight for freedom and let us know that we are not going away in vain.“ (She writes this letter before Dr. King’s famous Letter From a Birmingham Jail.) [x]Also, here’s an interview with her! The interviewer keeps interrupting her.Here’s Richardson speaking, at 91, about the role of women in the March on Washington and her efforts in Cambridge. The segment also features Daisy Bates’ speech at the March, the only speech by a woman.Here’s a Baltimore Sun article, which unfortunately refers to her as a housewife.The Civil Rights Movement Veterans site’s list of information about the Cambridge movement is here. -- source link
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