Hi! I wanted to end the seven categories on one that brings this full circle as we go into the next week of the series, so I decided to make the seventh one the Activism and Political Spotlight. Each week, I'll focus on an individual in either (or both) field(s) who made a change in the world, someone who broke barriers and paved the way for others. It kind of leads back into those who've helped to uplift the community and create a better tomorrow. That is exactly what today's entrant did. She educated, she fought (literally) and dedicated her life to ensuring there would be a better tomorrow.
Really quick before we get into today's post, this year I'll be doing something extra for BHS that I intended to do with previous runs of the series but was never able to pull off. A couple of Wednesdays this month around 5pm EST I'll be posting an Extra Spotlight, where I talk about something specific to Black culture. Today's Extra is one that pertains to vintage and it's one that I am so excited to post I could pee. LOLOL kidding. sorta. Anyway, I'll see you this evening!
Name: Amelia "Queen Mother" Boynton Robinson, 1911-2015
Profession: Activist, teacher
Why is the Spotlight on her today? For her bravery and dedication to both the voting rights and civil rights movements
Notables:
--was instrumental in helping MLK Jr. make Selma a focal point of the civil rights movement and actually was one of the leaders who organized the first march from Selma to Montgomery, which later became known as Bloody Sunday
--was the unintentional poster child of Bloody Sunday, as she was the woman in the now-iconic images of the woman beaten bloody and left unconscious in the street during the march
--was one of the first African-American women who were registered to vote in the South
--held multiple Black voter registration drives in order to encourage more Blacks to register to vote
--controversially partnered with political extremist Lyndon LaRouche to work with his Schiller Institute and served as vice chair of the organization
--marched with now-congressman John Lewis, who was also injured in the Bloody Sunday march
--was the first African-American woman to run for Congress in Alabama
--worked alongside her first husband for decades to secure voter's rights, property ownership and education for Blacks in the South during Jim Crow
--was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Medal of Freedom in 1990
--was portrayed by Lorraine Toussaint in the 2014 historical drama Selma
--commemorated the 50th anniversary of Selma in 2015 shortly before her death by accompanying then-President Barack Obama across the Edmund Pettus Bridge
--attended then-President Obama's 2015 State of the Union address as an invited guest of Terri Sewell, who became Alabama's first Black congresswoman in 2010
--helped her mother pass out pamphlets teaching others about the woman's suffrage movement as a child
--following "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, was invited personally by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965
--worked as a home demonstration agent for the US Department of Agriculture
--co-founded the Dallas County Voters League in 1933
--studied under George Washington Carver, who would later become a friend, at Tuskegee University
--offered her home to MLK and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as the group's headquarters, where the marches were planned
--in 1958, a few years before the events in Selma took place, her son Bruce would be arrested while at a whites-only lunch counter while traveling, which Thurgood Marshall would take to the courts as Boynton v. Virginia, which led to the desegregation of interstate travel stations in 1960
Further reading links:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
Quote of the Day:
"It's important that young people know about the struggles we faced to get to the point we are today. Only then will they appreciate the hard-won freedom of Blacks in this country."
"Get off of my shoulders. The foundation has been laid, now it is time for you to build on it and get to work."
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