Heroines Gallery

Flonzie (Goodloe) Brown-Wright

Her voter registration test included defining “Habeas Corpus” ... Read more.

Flonzie (Goodloe) Brown-Wright

“It’s been in my generation, in 1963, that blacks in this country could not register [to vote] without getting their heads cracked. I’ve seen it.”

When Flonzie (Goodloe) Brown-Wright tried to register to vote, she was asked to define “Habeas Corpus,” as part of the registration form only black Mississippians were expected to answer. Although she didn’t know what it meant at the time, she studied the Mississippi constitution and returned to successfully register to vote. She vowed that she would get the job of the man who denied her the right to vote. And she did. She became the first black woman to be elected County registrar. She is now an author and lecturer. She is featured in Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders and wrote an autobiographical essay in Pieces from the Past.

Hazel Brannon Smith

This newspaper owner and journalist faced firebombs and economic ruin when she exposed the truth about racism. ... Read more.

Hazel Brannon Smith

“If ever the martyrs to a free press in America assembled in Heaven, there is one thing I know: Hazel Brannon Smith will be in the front rank.”

Hazel Brannon Smith was the owner and editor of four weekly newspapers in rural Mississippi and was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing. Her editorials in her column (“Through Hazel Eyes”) focused on unpopular causes, political corruption and social injustice in Mississippi. She also received awards from the National Federation of Press Women, the Herrick Award for Editorial Writing, the Mississippi Press Association. She was president of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors from 1981 to 1982. In 1954, when the local sheriff shot a young black man in the back, Mrs. Smith wrote in a front page editorial in The Advertiser that the sheriff had violated “every concept of justice, decency and right.” As a result of her stance, Mrs. Smith’s newspaper became the target of an economic boycott, and the Segregationist White Citizens Council started an opposition paper. The boycott lasted 10 years, drained Mrs. Smith financially and eventually forced The Advertiser to close. But she continued to speak out against racism and bigotry. Hazel Brannon Smith is in both Standing on My Sisters’ Shoulders and in Pieces from the Past in an essay by fellow journalist Bill Minor.

Mae Bertha Carter

This mother of 13 faced bullets to get her children a good education. ... Read more.

Mae Bertha Carter

“I found myself back on the bed praying until my children came home. I went out on the porch when I saw the bus coming and I counted my children one by one as they got off the school bus.”

Mae Bertha Carter was a sharecropper and mother of 13 who promised herself that her children would not pick cotton, but get the education she was denied. The U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 called for the desegregation of all public schools, which enabled the Carters to be the first to integrate the Drew County Schools. After enrolling their children, they were startled by gunshots in the middle of the night. Their decision also led to the loss of jobs and their home. At the all-white schools, the Carter kids were tormented and shunned by the other students. Undeterred, they all graduated and went on to get college degrees. Mae Bertha Carter was an active NAACP member and leader in the Head Start program. She is featured in Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders and has an essay in Pieces from the Past written by Constance Curry.

Gloria Carter Dickerson

She thought she would make friends when she and her brothers and sisters integrated the all white high school. ... Read more.

Gloria Carter Dickerson

“I looked for some of my black friends but saw only white faces with mean looks.”

Gloria (Carter) Dickerson is the daughter of Mae Bertha Carter, and was a middle school student when she and 6 of her brothers and sisters integrated the all white Drew County schools. It was a struggle that shaped her life. Despite the bullying and the isolation, all of them graduated high school and went on to earn college degrees.

Gloria is a certified public accountant who received her bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Mississippi in Oxford and her MBA from Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. She was named as Mid South Delta Initiative Coordinator at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. In this position, Dickerson returns to her roots in Jackson, Mississippi, to help residents of the Delta increase their opportunity for economic growth through the Mid South Delta Initiative. She is featured in Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders and wrote an autobiographical essay in Pieces from the Past.

Annie Devine

This activist told America “to think about your soul.” ... Read more.

Annie Devine

Annie Devine was an insurance executive turned Civil Rights worker who was instrumental in increasing voter registration for black Mississippians in the Canton, Mississippi area. She was a co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party whose objective was to be recognized as delegates at the 1964 Democratic Convention.

When she, along with Fannie Lou Hamer and Victoria Gray Adams, initiated the Congressional Challenge, they became the first black women to be seated on the Floor of the House of Representatives. Their mission was to unseat the Mississippi congressmen who they claimed were elected illegally because of discriminatory voting practices. They were unable to do that, but successfully put pressure on President Johnson to pass the groundbreaking Voting Rights Act of 1965. Annie Devine graduated from Tougaloo College and was a longtime volunteer in the Head Start program. She is featured in Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders’ and in Pieces from the Past in an essay written by her daughter, the Reverend Barbara Devine Russell.

L.C. Dorsey-Young, D.S.W.

From sharecropper to University Professor. ... Read more.

L.C. Dorsey-Young, D.S.W.

“The four girls that I brought into this world and two sons can stand on my shoulders and the shoulders of my contemporaries to reach higher than their grandmothers ever dreamed…”

L.C. Dorsey started life as a sharecropper where at a young age experienced and understood the unfairness of the system. During the Civil Rights movement she was an activist with Head Start and she devoted her life to building economic independence in oppressed black communities of the Mississippi Delta. Her years of work with the prison system in the state led her to write many articles and the book COLD STEEL, an exposé about life in Parchman, Mississippi’s state penitentiary. She received her Master’s degree in Social Work from Stony Brook University in New York and is a Professor at Mississippi Valley State University. She is featured in Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders.

Victoria Gray Adams

She moved away from Mississippi and saw how life could be for African Americans… and returned to fight for equal right ... Read more.

Victoria Gray Adams

“I’m choosing to stay here and fight for the opportunity to be able to live in Mississippi as well as I can anywhere else.”

Victoria Gray Adams grew up in Mississippi, but had opportunities to live outside the state and country as a military spouse. She saw how much better she could be treated in other places and decided that she would fight for civil rights, to be able to live that way in Mississippi.

This businesswoman became a SNCC field secretary and played a key role in voter registration drives. She became co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which challenged the Democrats and President Johnson at the 1964 convention. She was also part of the Congressional Challenge, where she, Fannie Lou Hamer and Annie Devine became the first black women to be seated on the Floor of the House of Representatives to plead their case about the election abuses in their state. She was also the first woman to run for the U.S. Senate from the state of Mississippi.

She continues her political activism to this day with community service. Her motto is, “Life shrinks or expands in direct proportion to the courage with which we live it.” She is featured in Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders.

Winifred Green

When this white Southerner fought for equal rights, her family disowned her. ... Read more.

Winifred Green

“Once my mother said to me, ‘What did we do wrong?’ I remember saying to her, ‘Granny taught me, ‘Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight,’ and I didn’t know that she didn’t really mean black people.’”

Winifred Green grew up in a middle class family in Jackson, Mississippi, where she worshipped at an all white church. But when she was fourteen, she attended a mixed-race national convention of the Episcopal Church and realized that segregation was wrong. She became politically active at Milsaps College in 1962 where she organized Mississippians for Public Education. This group of women effectively protested the Legislature’s attempts to close the public schools to avoid integration. She traveled throughout the South recruiting Civil Rights activists and worked with Mae Bertha Carter’s family whose desegregation story is also featured in the documentary. She’s won numerous awards for her efforts and still strives “to see that children get an education that equips them to be productive citizens in the 21st century.” She is featured in Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders.

Fannie Lou Hamer

President Johnson interrupted this sharecropper’s telecast to stop the country from hearing her powerful message. ... Read more.

Fannie Lou Hamer

“I am sick and tired, of being sick and tired.”

The youngest of 20 children, Fannie Lou Hamer, rose from the servitude of a sharecropper to become one of the best known grassroots leaders in the state. Her powerful singing voice inspired many and was known for singing “This Little Light of Mine.” She lost her job and home when she went to register to vote; and she was brutally beaten in jail for attempting to integrate a lunch counter at the Winona bus station.

Her most nationally recognized moment as a Civil Rights leader came in 1964 when a speech she made was televised during the Democratic National Convention. A co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, she testified before the credentials committee and asked the searing question “Is this America?” where she and others like her had to live in fear because of their quest for freedom. In a controversial move, President Johnson pre-empted the speech to divert attention away from her, but the nation heard her words that night when all the networks rebroadcast her powerful speech.

In 1965, she teamed with Victoria Gray Adams and Annie Devine for the Congressional Challenge. They attempted to unseat five Mississippi congressmen, who were unfairly elected because eligible black voters were systematically denied the right to register and vote.

A national leader and a local inspiration, she continued her activism with projects like the Freedom Farm Cooperative in which 5,000 people were able to grow their own food and own 680 acres of land. She also worked on issues such as school desegregation, child day-care, and low-income housing until her death in 1977 at the age of 59. She is featured in Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders and in an essay in Pieces from the Past written by her grandniece, Monica Land.

Quotes from other women about Fannie Lou Hamer:

“Her mission was to love yourself enough… to take this chance so that we can get this freedom… I started feeling like I could do anything.” ~L.C. Dorsey-Young

“I’m amazed at how she put fear in the hearts of powerful people like Lyndon B. Johnson.” ~June E. Johnson

“Fannie Lou Hamer made me realize that we’re nothing unless we can hold this system accountable and the way we hold this system accountable is to vote and to take an active note to determine who our leaders are.” ~Constance Slaughter-Harvey

Winson Hudson

A civil rights pioneer who started trying to register to vote in 1937 and succeeded 25 years later. ... Read more.

Winson Hudson

“Fighting is an everyday thing…don’t never rest.”

Winson Hudson first tried to register to vote in 1937, and was one of the first to succeed twenty-five years later. At one attempt, she pushed through a crowd of men cursing and blocking the registrar’s door. While she filled out the application, a man gave her a card with two big red eyes on it saying, “The eyes of the Klan are upon you. You have been identified by the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.” They later firebombed her home for her protest activities. Despite the setbacks, she continued her activism throughout her life. She and her sister Dovie joined forces with Medgar Evers and established a county branch of the NAACP and later pushed for the first desegregation lawsuit. She was honored with the NAACP’s Freedom Award for Outstanding Community Service and the Second Congressional District Unsung Hero Award. She is featured in Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders and in Pieces from the Past in an essay written by her grandson Kempton Horton who remembers details of her life and her positive influence on him and others in the family.

June E. Johnson

At 14, she was jailed and beaten for her activism. ... Read more.

June E. Johnson

“I didn’t know a lot about racism. I didn’t know White folks hated Black folks so bad. You know, we washed their children’s behinds, we cleaned their clothes, we cleaned their houses, we did everything for them… But once the movement came in, and I got a chance to get a touch of it for myself, it was quite clear, that we were in a real, real, real bad struggle.”

June Johnson was only 14 years old when she joined SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and got involved with the Civil Rights movement. Even a girl of this young age was not immune from the brutality suffered by Civil Rights workers. When she and Fannie Lou Hamer among others were returning from a training session in North Carolina, they were arrested when they tried to integrate a lunch counter. She was jailed and brutally beaten. June remains an outspoken proponent of Civil Rights and works as a program monitor for the District of Columbia in the department of Early Childhood Development. She is featured in Standing on My Sisters’ Shoulders and her story is told in Pieces from the Past by 5 authors: Lawrence Guyot, Rose-Freeman-Massey, Charles McLaurin, John C. Brittain, Regena Lynn Thomas.

Joan Trumpauer Mulholland

A white Southerner who supported integration by enrolling at a black university. ... Read more.

Joan Trumpauer Mulholland

“Now if whites were going to riot when black students were going to white schools, what were they going to do if a white student went to a black school?”

Joan Trumpauer Mulholland was raised in Virginia, but played an important part in the Mississippi Civil Rights movement when she applied to the black Tougaloo College. She felt integration should not be left solely to the black students. On arrival in Mississippi, she was arrested for her Civil Rights activities, and spent the summer at Hines County jail. She was an active SNCC member and participated in the first sit-in at the Jackson Woolworth’s. What started out as a peaceful demonstration, erupted into mob violence. When someone grabbed Joan by her hair and dragged her through the hostile crowd toward the exit, she managed to break free and rejoin the sit-in. This incident was a catalyst for the student Civil Rights movement in Jackson. She now teaches Civil Rights History to her elementary school students in Arlington, Virginia. She is featured in Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders and wrote an autobiographical essay in Pieces from the Past.

Unita Blackwell

A sharecropper who was elected Mississippi’s first black woman mayor. ... Read more.

Unita Blackwell

“Nothin’ from nothin’ leaves nothin’. We didn’t have nothin’, so I was gonna try to see, could I get something? And one of those things was my right to register to vote and become a citizen of these United States.”

Written by JoAnne Prichard Morris Author here

Unita Blackwell was a sharecropper who rose to become Mississippi’s first black woman Mayor. During the Civil Rights movement, she worked for voting rights, and was arrested over 75 times, facing firebombs and burning crosses. She was part of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party that went to the Democratic Convention in 1964 and challenged President Johnson and the regular Democratic Party for the right of representation. She is a past national president of the U.S.-China People’s Friendship Association and has visited the country several times. In 1992, she was awarded the prestigious MacArthur “genius” grant. She continues her work in Mayersville where she was Mayor for over 20 years. She is featured in Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders and has an essay in Pieces from the Past written about her by JoAnne Prichard Morris.

Betty Pearson

An eyewitness to the pivotal Emmett Till trial. ... Read more.

Betty Pearson

“I certainly didn’t plan to right any wrongs, but there comes a point of no return where you have to do what is right or feel bad about yourself the rest of your life.”

Betty Pearson never planned on being an activist but found herself compelled to act in the face of injustice. A product of a traditional white southern family, witnessed the overt racism of segregation, the blatant unfairness of the Emmett Till trial in 1955. The case tried 2 men were accused of murdering a 14 year old black boy for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Despite the mounting evidence, she knew the accused white men would never be convicted. This case became the springboard of the Mississippi Civil Rights movement and ultimately prompted her to take a leadership role in promoting change by accepting an appointment to the Biracial Mississippi Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. She said, “It absolutely killed my father. He told me it was a betrayal of my heritage.” Pearson later served on the advisory committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. She joined the NAACP and worked toward school desegregation. She is featured in Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders and in an autobiographical essay in Pieces from the Past.

Florence Mars

She was the inspiration for Frances McDormand’s character in the movie, Mississippi Burning. ... Read more.

Florence Mars

“What a witness! She witnessed with her eyes, her ears and her heart.” She saw, she heard, she felt and through her own involvement she bore witness to qualities of courage and good will that all but evaporated in the climate of passion that flowed from an unreasoning fear of change.” —Turner Catledge, Executive Editor, New York Times

This activist was one of the few whites in Neshoba County who registered voters and supported the Civil Rights Movement. The Ku Klux Klan tried to intimidate her by burning down her barn. She was living in Philadelphia, Mississippi when three civil rights activists James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman went missing and were eventually found beaten and shot by members of the KKK. She eventually wrote about this time in Witness in Philadelphia: a Mississippi WASP’s Account of Civil Rights Murders. She was also the inspiration for Frances McDormand’s character in Mississippi Burning. She is featured in Pieces from the Past in an essay by Stanley Dearman.

Constance Iona Slaughter-Harvey

She fought for equal rights as the first black female student enrolled at Ole Miss Law School. ... Read more.

Constance Iona Slaughter-Harvey

“I had to step on my toes in order to be seen for our class picture. The guys did not want me in their picture because that was breaking a barrier.”

Constance Iona Slaughter-Harvey became the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Mississippi’s Law School and to integrate the Mississippi Bar Association. She faced prejudice and discrimination from the all-white, all-male law students. She went on to become Assistant Secretary of State in Mississippi and also was appointed to the Presidential Scholars Commission by President Carter. A successful attorney she now runs her own law firm specializing in civil rights cases.

Her daughter, Constance Olivia Slaughter-Harvey, wants to carry on the torch. She says, “I’m going to be a judge and that’s because I want to make sure that what my mother has fought for…will not be in vain.” She is featured in Standing On My Sisters’ Shoulders and wrote an autobiographical essay in Pieces from the Past.

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