Witnessing and Testifying

The Civil Rights Movement was not only an epochal social and political event but also a profound moral turning point in American history. Here, for the first time, social ethicist Rosetta Ross examines the religiously motivated activism of black women in the Movement and its moral import.

After a chapter exploring black women's religious context and presenting early examples of work by women of the antebellum and post-Reconstruction eras, Ross looks at seven civil rights activists who continue this tradition. They are Ella Baker, Septima Poinsette Clark, Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Way DeLee, Clara Muhammad, Diane Nash, and Ruby Doris Smith Robinson. In a fascinating narrative style that draws on biography, social history, and original archival research, Ross shows how their moral formation and work reflect both womanist consciousness and practices of witness and testimony, both emergent from the black religious context.

Ross's major work is engrossing history and moving ethical challenge. Examining black women's civil rights activism as religiously impelled

Rosetta E. Ross is the McVay Associate Professor of Christian Ethics at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities.

Photography Credits

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Preface

xiii

Religion and Public Life: Early Traditions of Black Religious Women's Activism

1

(30)

Working for Survival and Liberation: Racial Uplift and Social Responsibility

2

(3)

Womanist Theology and ``Keeping on Down the Freedom Road''

5

(8)

Witnessing and Testifying

13

(2)

Sojourner Truth: A Black Religious Woman's Antebellum Activism

15

(6)

Nannie Helen Burroughs: A Turn-of-the-Century Activist

21

(10)

Continuing the Traditions: Attention to the ``Least'' in Civil Rights Activism

31

(58)

Ella Baker: Passing on Values of Attending to the ``Least''

32

(19)

Septima Poinsette Clark: Education for Citizenship

51

(36)

Empowering Local People as a Moral Value

87

(2)

Giving the Movement Life: Black Women's Grassroots Activism

89

(52)

Fannie Lou Hamer: Realizing Promises of Religious Faith and Hope

90

(27)

Victoria Way DeLee: Community Activism as Religious Practice

117

(21)

Self-Realization as Moral Practice from a Grassroots Perspective

138

(3)

Clara Muhammad: Supporting Movement Ideas outside Its Mainstream

141

(22)

Clara Muhammad and the Nation of Islam

141

(1)

Religious and Moral Influences in Muhammad's Early Life

142

(4)

Muhammad's Role in the Development of the Nation of Islam

146

(12)

Muhammad's Religious and Moral Perspectives

158

(5)

``Fire Shut Up in My Bones'': Black Women Students in the Movement

163

(60)

Diane Nash: Passionate Agitation for Positive Quality of Life

164

(29)

Ruby Doris Smith Robinson: Building Community and Sustaining Community Protest

193

(27)

Nash and Robinson: Young Visionary Activists

220

(3)

Testimony, Witness, and Civic Life: The Meaning of Black Women's Civil Rights Participation

223

(14)

Testifying and Witnessing

223

(3)

Values and Virtues: Models and Practices in Black Religious Women's Activism

226

(8)

Black Religious Women and Public Life

234

(3)

Notes

237

(36)

Bibliography

273

(12)

Index

285

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Witnessing and Testifying

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials