- They organised citizenship training programmes and lobbied in Congress.
- Bethune attained much needed access to the politically powerful at a luncheon for women’s organisation presidents.
- No white guest would sit next to her until Sara Delano Roosevelt did so and introduced her to Eleanor Roosevelt. The kickstart to a politically powerful friendship that gave Bethune influence unprecedented amongst blacks of either sex.
- In 1939, Bethune was appointed director of the New Deal’s National Youth Administration (NYA). The first black to occupy such a high-level position.
- As director, she increased black employment opportunities, obtaining over 20 high-level positions for black administrators, and countless jobs for black youths.
- She organised the ‘Black Cabinet’ in Roosevelt’s Administration which focused on federal attention to black problems:
Advocating black civil rights, fought against lynching and the poll tax.
She stressed that black equality was necessary for Cold War propaganda against the USSR.
Bethune’s career as the highest-ranking black official in the New Deal illustrates the changing opportunities for women.
She helped change the focus of black activism from self-improvement to political pressure.
Rosa Parks: 1913-2005
- Involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1956, refused to give up her seat to a white man.
- Other women were also involved in this boycott, 300 women from the Montgomery Women’s Political Council (WPC) distributed leaflets to organise the boycott.
- Some women fundraised, and many black male ministers wanted to stop the boycott after a day but their female parishioners disagreed.
Women like the WPC chairman were physically threatened, and even had acid poured over her.
Ella Baker: 1903-1986