Black Women Leaders Still Pushed to the Back of the Bus

WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Despite the historic contributions made by civil rights pioneers Rosa Parks, Vivian Malone Jones, C. DeLores Tucker, Judge Constance Baker Motley, and Coretta Scott King, all of whom died during the past year, Black women say they struggle for opportunities to demonstrate their leadership, largely because of deep-seated sexist attitudes in the Black community.

“There are still men who have not accepted women’s determination to have equality,” says Dorothy Height, president emeritus of the National Council of Negro Women.

“They interpret it as being anti-men when women are even speaking for themselves. Also, there are still men who feel that women should only talk about ‘women’s issues.’ Well, all issues are women’s issues.”

Even when women discuss certain issues, they are expected to be diplomatic.

“Women have to do like Rosa Parks,” Height says. “They have to be willing to speak their mind, but do it in a respectful way and we have to continue doing it.”

That is if they get to speak at all.

Although there was plenty of talk about the Big Six civil rights leaders – A. Philip Randolph, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, and John Lewis – Dorothy Height was the only peer not allowed to speak during the 1963 March on Washington.

Today, Height is treated as civil rights royalty, enthusiastically applauded at public events and respected for her many years of service. Such adoration, however, masks a deeper issue of Black women not being accepted as equals on the civil rights battlefield.

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