In the semester where were talking about the Civil Rights Movement. Weve been looking at that for a couple of sessions now. The interesting thing about teaching the Civil Rights Movement is that its perhaps the era that most americans think they know the most about. Weve talked a little bit about this and we will talk some more about this. Just because folks think they can quote a few sentences from Martin Luther kings speech in washington or know a little bit about rosa parks is civil disobedience on the bus. Even having some visual images in our mind of people being brutalized by fire hoses and dogs. Theres a real kind of visual narrative that comes to all of this. We often think that we know a lot about this movement. One of the challenges for those of us who are learning the movement and connecting it to this much longer history of a black activism was, is theres a point where we almost have to unlearn some stuff before we can learn some stuff. Thats what i our reading is for today. Charles panes, from the trenches. I think it will be a good idea to look at it. One of the main things we are going to do, our main point today, is to look at what Charles Payne calls the master narrative of the movement. What we are going to do is begin to establish and look at what some of the major tropes and issues are in terms of what this master narrative is. Think a little bit about why this master narrative has endured and what kind of purpose it serves for us when even five or six decades after the height of the Civil Rights Movement. More importantly, we are going to reassemble the narrative or recenter the narrative. Moving away from this master narrative to a narrative that is much more inclusive. A narrative that is going to center, in our case today, black women in the Civil Rights Movement. Before we do that, lets talk about what pain calls the master narrative of the movement. What is the master narrative of the movement . What are some of the components that Charles Payne is getting us to think about about what the master narrative is when we think about the Civil Rights Movement . What are some of those components . Hes focusing on who the kind of mainstream idea is the national movement. The march on washington, Martin Luther king, the kind of more popular ideas. Pain is asking us to look at the local struggle and local communities specifically and what they did for the movement. Right. One major component of this master narrative is a focus on the civil rights narrative from a National Perspective and not a local one. Good. Any other components . Yeah . Its also a non complement everyone comes to the conclusion that racism is wrong at the same time. Theres a sympathetic government. Right. Theres a sympathetic government. When it minimizes the intensity of struggle and minimizes the intensity of opposition to the movement. Right . Theres a way that, through this master narrative of the movement which has been passed down in terms of how the movement was remembered, theres a way of racing the real opposition to it. Right . Theres these images of, yeah, there were a few bad folks in a particular place and a few bad Police Chiefs and things like that. But not really understanding that, while not everyone was out there with fire hoses and police talks, theyre still a great deal of opposition to the Civil Rights Movement. What are some other components to the master narrative . He explains how they say that it was reduced more to a protest as opposed to activism. Anyone want to help me out with that . What does that mean . Protest versus activism. Those two things sounds pretty similar to me. What is the difference between what simplifying the master narrative to be about protest, but not activism . Yeah . I think when the Civil Rights Movement is overly simplified, Like Elementary School classrooms and stuff like that, its viewed as a bunch of people coming together at the right place at the right time as opposed to a long struggle that ended up with people getting more rights have. Yeah. I like the way you put it. These protests, sort of like a bunch of people showing up at the right place at the right time as opposed to strategic planning. I not just the big events but the small Grassroots Level work. There was a great deal of strategizing and organizing and it was not as simple as it seemed where it sort of happened. Any other components to the way that we understand the civil rights through the master narrative . Yeah . They talk about what happened earlier. What happened earlier is just as important as what happened during that time period. Absolutely. A major component of the master narrative of what we think of as the Civil Rights Movement really has these neat book and. It essentially starts with the brown versus board of education case. Maybe rosa parks act of civil disobedience in montgomery. It ends either with the Voting Rights act in 1965, or certainly with the death of Martin Luther king in 1968. While that is a moment of intensification in the social movement that is where the Civil Rights Movement, it completely ignores what weve been learning about in class so far. The long history of black activism before. It also gives a sense that the issues that people were fighting for in the Civil Rights Movement sort of magically and with the passing of certain legislation. That theres no need for things to go forward. That becomes part of it. Any other things that we miss with the master narrative . What all the examples, you can see how deep and pervasive this is. People tend to forget the efforts of ordinary people. The struggles the political communities went through her. Absolutely. Theres so much of an emphasis on leaders, particularly male leaders. We could simplified that theres so much of an emphasis on Martin Luther king and the man that surround him and the people who are in these marches have become nameless and famous. It does not demonstrate the active role that ordinary citizens and people in local communities were doing to try to make things better. Any other stuff . I think we have a lot of things. Yeah . In the first sense sentence, it says the relationship between racism and the south was oppressive. It limits it to the south. It does not take into account that things were happening in the north that were just as bad. Yes. Part of the master narrative not only narrows the chronology of what we think of as the Civil Rights Movement, but the geography of it. It becomes just focused on what is happening in the south as if racial inequality only existed in the south. And as if the fighting against racial inequality is only limited in the south. Right . Again, these are all part of this much bigger narrative. What is being called the master narrative of the movement. That theres some truth to some of the things that are in their. There is something important about montgomery. There was something important about Martin Luther king. But if we just think about the movement and only remember it in these very narrow terms, we are going to lose more than we actually learn. I want us all to think about why we think the Civil Rights Movement has been remembered in this way. Its not something i think is a very narrow depiction. If you look recently, we talked about this, the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther kings assassination was just commemorated in april. We talked about the ways that the memory of that is playing into these master narratives. The way that policy makers play into it. The way educational institutions often play into it. Why do you think that is . What do you think is the stake in the way that we remember the Civil Rights Movement . You already touched on this before, where i guess payne talks about it. People tend to look at the Civil Rights Movement as largescale offense. That one police chief did something bad or that person in the south did something bad. They dont really want to accept the fact that this was a day today constant piece of life for people. I personally think that stems from a lack of wanting to take responsibility. Why people dont want to accept the fact they had a pardon it. That lack of responsibility makes the narrative change. I think the point about day today experiences of racial inequality, but also every day acts of resistance against it. Thats something that gets missed out. There is a place for largescale events. There is a place for mass protests, but we cannot do that at the expense of thinking about how peoples lives were impacted by racial inequality and by activism on a daytoday basis. Anyone else on why we think the civil rights narrative has often been depicted in these particular ways . Yes. To go off of what she said, i feel that america has this overall sense to not wanting to seem like the bad guy. Just going off of a broad overall representation. America was known as being the place of freedom and the american dream. For them to take responsibility for the bad things that happened up until the Civil Rights Movement and up until today, they also want to look at the Positive Side of the story. Were celebrating Martin Luther king, but in reality, they dont look at the negative sides of what americans did back then and what they are doing right now. Think about the context. This idea perception becomes really important. Think about the context in which the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement is happening in the 19 fifties. Right . What was the larger geopolitical context that was happening that made the notion of how americans are being presented become even more dire . Anybody remember that context . The wider context. The cold war right . The cold war and the way that it framed this narrative of good versus evil. The United States was supposed to, and wanting to come out looking more positive than the soviet union, for example. This question about american perception isnt nearly merely about people wanting to feel good about themselves and the narratives they portray. It also has very real geopolitical and Foreign Policy implications. Right . Americas perception impacts americas role and being a superpower. All of these things. That does not end with the cold war, it continues. This is part of why that narrative sort of developed the way it does and why it continues to develop. Our key question that we want to look at for today and begin to examine is how does centering the civil rights activism of a black women disrupt and change this master narrative of the Civil Rights Movement . We established some of the contours of this master narrative. We thought through a little bit about why the master narrative may have developed the way it does and the kinds of utility that it functions for poor people. So now we want to try to see, if we look at the movement from a different perspective, does that begin to provide insight for us into thinking about the master narrative, and ultimately, thinking about the Civil Rights Movement differently . Before we do that, i want to think about and this is something that will require us to think back about some of the things weve talked about, and read about in class. I want to talk about what some of the unique ways that black women, both in the north and south, experienced the perils of segregation and Racial Discrimination. If were looking at this moment in the 19 fifties to this period during segregation, i want to think about some of the ways that gender and Racial Discrimination and oppression intersect was to give black women, both in the north and south, a different experience of the period of segregation. What im trying to get us to think about that. Im not trying to get into an oppression lip thinks. Thats not a useful thing to do. What we can address is that they experienced differently. That there were some issues, because of the way that gender is constructed and experienced one, ways that African American women are experiencing this period of segregation differently than black men are. When we think about these challenges, i want to not just think about the ways that African American women are experiencing segregation just visavis the relationship the whites. But also how internal dynamics within black communities are also constraining black women in ways that perhaps black men are not right. Think about our readings that weve had so far. Think about the memories coming of age and mississippi that weve been reading. To think about life in the world in the rural south and Civil Rights Movement. Think about the film that we saw about the murder of emmett till and the rule that made me till plays. Can you think of something even in our discussion about the montgomery boycott that we had earlier . What are some of the different ways that black women are experiencing segregation than black men are . Because i think that will help us think about what kind of activism black women begin to engage in. What are some differences . Can you think of anything . One of the things her mom was forced to leave the kids at home, so she had the pressures of having to carry on the domestic move duties for her own family but also had to leave the family to go work, and so that they unfairly treated. Her absolutely. This idea that black women are responsible, in many cases about the gender norms of their time. Caring for children, but also having the very real constraints of the economic injustice. The disease economic disenfranchisement that the black families had. Just being able to negotiate their economic duties with their duties at home for childbearing and childcare. Lets put some particulars trains on black women in segregation. What else . I wanted to at what were talking about yesterday or two days ago. About how the bus boycott i actually started. Black women were usually domestic id say domestic workers. In white homes. Towns were not really adjacent, but they were pretty far in the distance, so they would have to take buses to go over there. They would be mistreated and talented and harassed, almost from it. Sometimes they would miss work because the bus driver would not take them. It increased the problems that was going on. Absolutely. The very limited economic and labor options that black women had which where the majority of the time of segregation, where black women and working in Domestic Service in the homes of whites. Because of what we know about residential segregation patterns, black communities and White Communities were not adjacent to one another. Just as you said. They were often across town. Black women were usually the ones within communities that were using Public Transportation more thank. So because of that, they are the ones who are experiencing the brutalities, the violence and the indignities of writing these segregated buses and being harassed by bus drivers and being harassed by other patrons. They are experiencing segregation in their everyday lives in a different way or intense way and men are on transportation, such as because theyre using it more often. Any other examples . Kind of like going off of that. I was thinking about the vulnerability that black women were in because they were in white homes. We talked about the sexual violence, especially from white men who were in those homes, and its just like because, theres this they were so close, directly working in the homes of their oppressors, that that kind of opens the door for more subtle, but more obvious forms of harassment and violence. Right. These kinds of labor conditions, you are absolutely right, are putting black women in a very vulnerable place that they are working in these very intimate environments where any kind of accusation around sexual abuse or Sexual Assault because of the power dynamics, they will not be seriously, this raises a larger point, really even going back to the period right after reconstruction, where we are talking about how sexualized violence in the form of rape and Sexual Assault becomes a tool in the arsenal of violence. Whites are using this to keep African Americans in fear and intimidated. This extra dimension that violence is a part of that. When we are talking about black womens experiences, the threat of sexualized violence becomes even more intensified. This is not stood of juggling who had better or better or worse that is an area we need to think about. Explicitly flee are centering black women with that. Thinking about the Civil Rights Movement as a battle to deal with issues of sexual violence. We could think in our 21st century in the metoo movement, and questions of Sexual Harassment and violence, but what weve seen through the life of people like resee taylor is that black women were centering the issue of sexualized violence during the Civil Rights Movement. It is often very absent from the sun arid of, but it is. There we talked about last time how rosa parks herself was someone who is going through the deep south, getting narratives from black women who had been assaulted. Trying to think about ways to mobilize against that. Sexualized violence is very important. Any other ways that blacks womens since periods experiences may have impacted we have segregation excuse me the residential patterns. We also can think about ways that black womens behavior was often policed in ways that black mens behavior was not. How that policing of behavior about what it meant to be a proper women impacted who black communities were reeling to rally behind. Example of cloth it cole van, a young woman who was pregnant and unmarried, we did the very same thing that rosa parks did, but because she was seen as someone who had a past that would not look good to a greater public, people did not rally behind her and again, this is something that black women faced in ways that were different. Then of course, one of the things the masterson arid of reminds us is just how much a male power and leadership was valorized within the movement in waves that obscured and ignored the very real work that black women had been doing. So Media Attention for example would always be drawn to the men of the movement at their is doing work, Martin Luther kings and others, but would not necessarily go to women like ella baker who is a longtime activist who helped to nurture and birth the student movement, right . Or diane nash who was a leader in the sit in movement in the student nonviolent coordinating community. Women like Dorothy Height who held leadership positions. Head of the National Council of niagara women. We want to have a voice. So the master narrative and the way that men were seen as being the only negro front that had something to say trying the Media Attention of scoop pure women have these particular narratives. So i think its important for us to think about the ways that physical violence, sexual violence, black womens roles as mothers in the movement, black womens economic and labor constraint, how all of those things in their everyday life helped to propel them toward activism that looks different than much of the activism that is in the mass unaired. Of what we are going to do now is begin to look at our readings and look at some specific examples of black womens activism. We will look at moody and her memoir coming of age and mississippi. Were also going to look at a chapter that you all read from my book beauty shop politics, we will look at chapter five which is talking about the Civil Rights Movement. I want us to start with movie, a place where the work and research that i have done intersects with movies. I dont know if youve caught it, but ive opened up the chapter in my book referring to an experience that and moody had while she was in a sit and. I will just read very briefly from an excerpt. If you want to follow along. Its on page two 93 in this edition of it. So this is after moody was in a sit in that turned violent. She says, before we were taken back to campus, i wanted to get my hair washed. It was stiff to with dried mustard, catchup and sugar. I stopped in at a beauty shop across the street from the naacp office. I did not have on any issues because i had lost them when i was dragged across the floor at will worths. My stockings were sticking to my legs from the mustered that had dried on them. The hairdresser took a look at me and said my, you are in that sitting right, . Yes, i answered. Do you have time to wash my hair and style . It right away she said, and she meant right away, there were three other ladies already waiting, but they seemed glad to let me go ahead of them. The hairdresser was real nice. She even took off my stockings and washed my legs while my hair was drawing. I remember when i was working on this book project, i thought this was such a powerful scene and a powerful moment to get us to think about black women within the Civil Rights Movement. Here we have an moody whose body is literally embattled. She was on the front lines at a sit in movement, trying to get African Americans better access and equal access. She gets ketchup and mustard and she gets spat upon. She gets racial slurs hurled at her. All of those things. The first place she decides to go its sort of a bizarre place. Maybe even a foolish place to a beauty shop. She knew that she could get her hair washed there. We understand that, right . She literally has stuff kate in her hair. She did not even have her shoes, like she said, because she had to run away from what was happening in the woolworth. But the way that she describes her treatment, once she gets into the salon, it is something that can help us think about black women and black womens roles and the importance of institutions that are soft sort of owned and run by black women and sustaining women like moody who are on the front lines of the movement. She knew that in the beauty shop it would be a safe place. It would be a refuge for her. A place where she could not only have her hair washed, but the way that she talks about the gentle pamper ring by the beauty shun. Even the way that she refers to how the other women who were in the shop let her go ahead of them. It shows that it was also a place where in many ways, she could have her soul restored. I think that is something that we need to think about a lot as we are reading memoirs and seeing films. Even when you are watching those old movie reels of people on the front lines for the Civil Rights Movement, and we think of them as kind of nameless faceless people in a black and white photo without fully considering the psychological toll and damage that these kinds of things are putting, not just on their bodies but also on their minds and spirits. The beauty shop becomes a place of refuge for her. I use that as an introduction to get us to think about how the beauty shop was not just a place of refuge, but also became a place where activism itself can be planned. It could be enacted. I want to talk about that a little bit. I thought it might be useful since you have the weird and maybe unwelcome opportunity where for the first time you actually have the author of one of your pieces in front of you who also is your professor. That could get a little weird. But we are all cool now. You all can ask me anything and feel free to use the strategies of critique that i have been training you with all semester on my own work, that actually nothing would make me happier than that. I thought it might be useful to talk about how i kind of stumbled into this work on putins and the Civil Rights Movement. It is sort of an odd thing. It is something i never envisioned doing. It almost does not even make sense. Except onside got i would really inches in black womens activism. Just sort of in a general sense. I was reading everything i could get my hands on about the topic. I also began to do archival work and primary sources and learning. That process of research as you are doing a topic. I began to notice something weird, but interesting. Many of the women who were mentioned in both primary and secondary sources, particularly those sources who were looking at local and Grassroots Community organizing and activism, that many of the women had a similar occupation. They were beauty shuns. I did not really think much of it at first. I looked at it and said all right. Thats kind of interesting, but maybe not. Im looking for the real story right . Im looking for the story that seemed more important and juicier. Then i began to think about it even more. This question about the master narrative. Thinking about how it can impact even the way we read and understand our sources when doing research. At the time, i was also reading an article called the age of madam c. J. Walker. As many of you know, madame c. J. Walker was a black beauty pioneer from the early 20th century. She creates this Beauty Company and Beauty Industry that employs thousands and thousands of women. She has a factory. She is selling products all over the african diaspora. She is really one of the pioneers of the black Beauty Industry. The article, she poses an interesting question. Why is it that we think of the early 20th century as the age of book or tea washington . Weve studied him as an educational leader. He was considered the top black leader of his day. One of the things that the article says is, what would happen, its almost a question very similar to what Charles Payne is trying to do in getting us to rethink the master narrative of the movement. She says, what would happen if we centered the experience of madam c. J. Walker in that moment and called it the age of madame c. J. Walker instead of calling it the age of book or tea washington . What might we learn from doing that . I took that to heart. I then said, okay, if i centered experiences of these black petitions in the movement, how will that change what we know or what we think we know about the Civil Rights Movement . Thats essentially where the project ended up going and where the research ended up taking the. Even once i got into it, the things that were happening among black amputations in the 19 fifties and sixties were particularly interesting to me. Right . Because we see everyone, all the key people who are part of our master narrative of the Civil Rights Movement. People like Martin Luther king, talking about black petitions as being central to the Civil Rights Movement. That shows us that even when we are following the people who are part of the master narrative, when they are saying things and doing things that dont fit into our master narrative, we ignore them. I was shocked to find that in 1957, at the beginning of kings ascendancy as a black leader, is addressing a National Group of black petitions on a topic called the role of amputations in the contemporary struggle for freedom. This is king right . Completely missing from the narrative. We see leaders in the Democratic Party making statements like, if you get imputations engaged in two your candidates campaign, then you found a gym because they can make all these things happen. These are people who are central to our ideas about the movement, but they are talking about women and they are talking about activism in ways that arent really legible to us. So we often, researchers have often left them out, and made the marginalized. I want to think about this. The article has a lot, the chapter i should say, has a lot of evidence of the work that like the additions were doing and what they were doing in beauty shops. Were going to talk about some of that. As youve read it, why do you think black beautifully shuns were so effective as activists and grassroots leaders . What was unique about their position and what they had access to that made the kind of activism that we will talk about in a minute possible . On page 1 19 of the reading, we talk about abuse to shin who the police chief comes to her place of work and is trying to intimidate her husbands manager into firing her husband and different types of things. She is afforded the ability to kind of talk back to him because, as a Small Business owner, she has that economic freewill basically. She doesnt have to worry about her employer firing her from saying something unsavory. She basically has the freedom to speak her mind. I think thats powerful, especially in that type of social movement. Right. The example that you raised is a good one. She and her husband were very active in mississippi and the naacp and Voter Registration movements. They get hauled in. The police chief is going after them and keeps threatening her husband and saying we will get you fired. We are going to get you fired. As a putin and Business Owner who owned her own business think about it to, she did not only own her own business, but who were her clients . Other black women right . Even her manufacturing. This is at a time where black women beauty manufacturers were supplying her products and all of her stuff. There was no when the police chief could go to and say fire her because she owned her own business. She was economically autonomous. So that position to her and other beauty shuns well to be able to take risks because they did not have to fear retribution. Women and men would lose their jobs all the time if theyre civil rights activity was found out. Thats definitely a big reason. What are some of the reasons . Yeah. You mentioned how one of the politicians said he mobilized mutations because theyre like missionaries. Everyone they come in contact with, they make boating as important to them as god. Their proximity with customers and other people in the community, theyre like missionaries. Spreading the word and spreading activism. Yeah. Any of us have ever been to a beauty salon, particularly those who may have a long term kind of relationship with one particular stylist, theres a certain kind of intimacy and bond that develops between a hairstylist and their client. They are there often develops a kind of trust between them. So beautiful since had a great deal of credibility. So when theyre spreading the good news about voting and Voter Registration and civil rights activities, their clients are very receptive to it in ways that maybe, if someone else told him this, they would not be as receptive. That kind of intimacy and bond and relationship that they have is also part of what is building that. What else . And the other ways why view tissues may have been well suited for this kind of civil rights work . Yeah. Just the physical act of sitting in the chair and having something sharp close to your head. Youre in a kind of vulnerable position. If someone is cutting your hair. A column that has been dipped in flames coming behind your head. Right . You have to trust this person who has these materials. Theres already a kind of sense of vulnerability. I think theres a form interest in that, like you said, but also that relationship is important. This person is taking care of you. In that way it makes some people feel a lot more comfortable. Especially in an environment where being comfortable was not common for black women. They were working in homes that were obviously uncomfortable. Even when they went home, they had other duties. This was a kind of safe space for them to go and be taken care of. That kind of fosters the trusting relationship. When that person is telling you about civil rights and voting in all of that, there are more inclined to listen. They have a i think the role is super interesting. Not only did physical position they are in. They have a unique kind of on your shoulder. Yeah. Youre trusting them. Thats why the example of anne moody going to the salon underscores that. She was embattled and in a low place, but she knew that was one of the few places that she could be cared for. That also continues to develop trust in that. Yes . This goes back to what you were saying earlier about how womens behaviors were policed in certain ways. I would say that black dietitians were important to the movement because of the present ability of their clients. I think dr. King will sit Something Like look like youre going to church when youre going to participate in the acts of this movement. The beauty parlors is where you go for that. Yeah. There is a way where self presentation was a very effective strategy within the movement. Again, going back to our earlier points about the master narrative and it was just this idea of mass protests and people would just show up and things would happen. They were instructed when showing up that rallies and marches and movements and sit in on the specifics would. Down to how to dress. That instruction of dressing neatly and modestly like youre going to church was about that. It was when we look at images and videos and stills of the Civil Rights Movement and you see how these College Students are dressed going to a woolworth county. Knowing they are going to leave with their close ruined and their hair a mess. That was a strategy of looking a particular way. Part of that was about getting to medias attention of looking at these very well dressed well groomed, well behaved black people on the frontlines getting brutalized. Youre absolutely right. Part of that process of getting there, at least four women at this particular time, was about a particular kind of hair grooming that happened in black beauty shops. So literally, black petitions are preparing people for the front lines and that way as well. What about the beauty shops we talked a bit about mutations and the role that they played that made it very easy for them to become civil rights leaders and activists. What about the space of the beauty shop . One of the reasons why they were also very effective is that they had ownership, literally, of a space. And institutional space. We cannot underestimate the importance of institutional space. I know you are all my very 21st century young College Students. Sometimes, we dont appreciate how important physical space is because much of what we do is in the digital world. To get a space and to get people in the same room to be together and be protected is important. Right . So what are some of the other ways a beauty shop in particular with serve to be a powerful Political Institution . The beauty shop fostered a safe space for women to discuss issues on civil rights and also maybe discuss more extreme issues. It said here on page 1 03 that they did not always agree with the ministers or at the people who are often seen in positive light within the Civil Rights Movement. They could discuss their discrepancies and problems they had with them and different points of views on how to move forward with the Civil Rights Movement. Absolutely. The way that the beauty shelf space, it was different than the Church Environment met where black women may not have been the ones who are in leadership positions to be able to direct the conversations that were going on there. Also, and this is something to think about as well, think about for those who were in opposition to civil rights. Churches were very much on their radar. We know that because they bombed churches. They attacked churches. They firebombed the homes of black ministers and people who were connected to it. That was a very visible institution. Youre absolutely right that the beauty shop, as this kind of alternative space, allowed for conversations of a more radical sort about the Civil Rights Movement because they were completely under the radar. One of the things i always say is that for just about every black person or ally who was involved in the Civil Rights Movement, there is an fbi file on the fbi file on the. Its fact. Fbi was monitoring the tapes on Martin Luther king, all of that. From leaders up talk to the grassroots leaders. There are fbi files that you can look and see on them. I have not been able to find an fbi file on a putin, even though hes putins were involved in much of the same work and some of the cases more radical work on some of them being surveilled. When they do appear, sometimes like robinson who is in the article which we will talk about in a moment, her cousin appears in the record in the fbi record, and she is identified as an unidentified woman. There is a way that because the beauty shop is viewed as frivolous, what is happening in their . A bunch of women in their gossiping . That is our perception of what happens at beauty. Shops the diminishing of that. They were able to really flourish as political people because they were perceived is not doing anything important. They used that disadvantage to their advantage. So in a way that churches and other kinds of institutions were on the radar, beauty shops were able to slip under them. They were in just made it and it were to their advantage. Lets talk about what was happening in the. Shops and think about them within this larger context of the Civil Rights Movement or the black freedom struggle. And going back to our point of the master narrative that if we are focusing on the master narrative, it seemed as though the most important thing was about getting laws changed. Getting lost changed is important, but when we look at the activism of black beautician, we begin to see a much more complex and story, we see a deeper story of the everyday people. What are some of the issues, some of the concerns that black beauticians tackled from their position as beauticians and from their space and beauty shops. You can look at any woman in the chapter. Bernies robertson. Ruby blackburn. What are some of the things that were important to them . The issues . Voting registration, mainly, especially robinson who one offered to take in registration cards to her house, so that the whites in the neighborhood would know who was registering. Then she became a teacher, to teach people how to read the paragraph yes. Bernies robinson really had this she used her salon and powerful waves like you outlined. An observer of her salon, i talk about this in the chapter called her salon a center for all sorts of subversive activity, which i love. You think about of a beauty salon, and some of the things you were talking about. She allowed her home to be a repository for people who want to, for example to join membership in the naacp which after the brown versus board of Education Court case which we talked about last class was illegal. Remember, i talked about how many states made membership in the naacp illegal. South carolina was one of them. If any black person wants to join the naacp, they could be fined or arrested for that. What many women would do would be to have their mail from the naacp sent to bernece robinsons home. Because again, one of the frontline attacks on African Americans was to try to fire them from their jobs. To try and intimidate their employers to fire them if they were known to be engaged in civil rights activities. They were sent to robinson salon, and she says, i did not have to worry about losing my job, because again, for the same reasons, she had that economic autonomy. She also used her salon as a school. She turned it into a citizenship education school, where she not only taught ways to try to help African Americans register to vote, which was always a very tricky and complicated thing, even if you could actually read the paragraph, then the registrar would say well then you probably did not read it properly. Which she did as she used that as a really, as a way to educate people in her community more generally. She opens up citizenship education to teach basic literacy skills, basic math skills, basic accounting skills, things that people in her community needed. Very practical things. This is something that i think marks the work of black was beauticians in the south. They were also interested in things like basic nutrition and health, which is part of what Bernice Robinson does when she gathers a black a group of black petitions to support the building of a tent city and county tennessee. For sharecroppers who were evicted off their land for engaging in activism. She wanted to provide not just a home for them but places where they and their families could get nutrition, health care, child care. Very kind of nuts and bolts ruby parks blackburn of atlanta who used her position as a beauty shin to advocate for getting bus Service Extended into black neighborhoods, was an early advocate of what we think about as combatting environmental racism, which is, this practice of companies and corporations dumping chemicals in communities of color. So she was an early advocate for that. Again, just thinking about how these beauties shuns are working to deal with very nuts and bolts. We center their experiences. It disrupts the master narrative for us, because it is forcing us to think about the Civil Rights Movement beyond the national. It is forcing us to think about not just the sympathetic governments response, but how African Americans were organizing on Grassroots Levels to try to make their day today lives better. It also gets us to rethink the goals of the Civil Rights Movement. Their emphasis on meeting, pressing and practical needs for those who are most vulnerable in their communities was actually very much at the heart of what we think of as a Civil Rights Movement. In fact, i would say that was the heart of the movement. Yes, laws and all those things are to protect that, but i think the master narrative does not allow for us to think about the ways that the goals or the movement were about meeting these pressing and practical needs, particularly for those who are most vulnerable in black communities. Also, the work of black beauticians in the movement disrupt this idea of spontaneous protest, because they were creative. They were innovative. They were strategic. Of all things that were very important. It also gets us to rethink the role and the importance of the media in the Civil Rights Movement, which was something that was very important. We see organizations and leaders skillfully using the media, but part of what made beauticians so successful, was the fact that they flew underneath the radar and were not the ones most prominent out there in front of the Television Screen and recognizable. It was their anonymity that made their activism successful, and they also remind us that there is no real easy winds in the black freedom stroke. If we focus on checking off some laws and bills, and it is easier to look at the movement as something that, they were clear winners and clear losers. The issues that they were advocating for were a constant reminder to us that much of what they started is still left unfinished. My hope is, as we look at the role of black beauticians and sort of think about them and think about the activism of black women in general, as a way of disrupting the mass sin arid of, it will cause us to think about the Civil Rights Movement differently. I hope it causes us, and you know this is always my thing about the class, that is important for us to study the past for the past state, i am a historian. I believe in. That but also, because of the way we remember the Civil Rights Movement actually tells us about more about who we are in the 21st century than it does about what was actually happening in the 24 century. I hope that when we look back at people like an moody and women like those black petitions, and it would actually inspire us and challenge us to look for new possibilities in the every day to make an impact. To look at these personal and Community Spaces that are often overlooked and think about how they could possibly become a part of a larger struggle to make our world better. So really, their creativity and use of what was at hand, their willingness to look at their limitations but use it as a positive is something we can all aspire to when we think about freedom struggles. Any other final questions or comments about beauty shuns . What were some of the things that you learned or may have surprised you most about it . Im sure most of you had never seen a civil rights text that centers them. Was there anything that surprised or shocked you . Anything that you found encouraging or problematic . Yes. Like you said, how there are not any fbi files on the beauticians on them. Especially since people were sending males to the salons, and they were doing all these things. Its kind of an open secret among the black population. Was it just because they were so removed from black life, that that is why they just didnt see what was happening . I will pose that to everyone else. Reading what you read. Why do you think they were so successful at flying under the radar when there is all this activity going on that was documented, and i was able to find as a researcher 50 years later. It was not hidden. It was sort of hidden in plain sight. Why do you think it was so hidden . Why do you think that was so effective . I think that the black women is typically undervalued and undermined, even within our own communities sometimes, so much so that you see a lot of men come to the front when it comes to civil rights activism. It was rumors that some of those men were i dont know maybe like, other people, the majority of americans that viewed our movement and looked at the men at the front and were like ok, those were probably the people who are advocating, or putting these pieces of the puzzle together. You do not really see too many women in the front of the Civil Rights Movement with the exception of the black Panther Movement where you saw them push more women into the front. I think it is also a representation of how some of us, how black men and women kind of viewed each other as well, to the point where, that is how the public perceived. It women not playing as much of a role as they did. Yeah. Any other thoughts on the . On why sort of this extensive history of activism was hidden from public in a lot of ways . I would say just because some jobs are just often ignored when it comes when it comes to political activism, so if anyone heres, somethings going on at that beauty parlor, they would immediately zone out. Which i think is possible. I think its something we all could learn from, right . That the spaces that seemed the most frivolous can actually have the potential to have some of the most radical potential in it, for the very reason that because they are so easily dismissed. He might even thing to a certain extent, not a perfect parallel, but a similar one, we think about social media as something that we all probably waste way too much of our time on and all of that, but also has been used to great effect by organizations like black lives matter. By groups who are rallying like students in florida, around the country who are rallying on behalf of gun control and other things. The metoo hashtag. There are ways that even what is most frivolous, can actually sure of a potential. I think that is something that whenever i think about this research, it constantly challenges me to think about that, that for the things that are important to me, that i want to see changed, what spaces, even those that may be dismissed that i might be able to use to effectively make that change . That is basically what i was going to say. It kind of makes me love it even more. Its the fact that it was so easily dismissed. Oh, they are frivolous women. They cant control anything. But really, and so they kind of like took that and made it into something they took that opportunity of them being dismissed to make it even more powerful by being more eight incognito to make this political change. I just think its kind of like so beneficial in so many levels. Beneficial to the individual. Its a place for a black women to feel safe and recharge, i guess, in that political climate, but also on a national scale. Like the policy that they were able to effect. Great. I also think maybe a cultural difference may have contributed a little bit, because speaking from just my own personal experience, i dont think the average white person places a super high importance on a barbershop. I can go to any barbershop. There are no five barbershops in my town. I have no allegiance to one barbershop. People dont necessarily understand maybe because as far as i understand, the way you have to care for your hair i think a lot of people did not understand either how much time someone might spend in a barbershop, or the importance of your legions to a particular barbershop and how it played a role, so people could easily overlook. That i think you are right. The cultural differences are very important in this. One, in terms of how much is getting done in a beauty shop. Part of why it was so effective is that there was a captive audience that was there for a long time