A History of Southern Women’s Activism

By Misty Layne

Jun 05, 2025

Activism is top of mind for many during this time of accelerating fascism, government violence, and the erosion of people’s rights. Whether it’s marching in the streets, boycotting corporations, writing postcards, or ensuring everyone in your circle has enough to get by, people are rising to meet the current threat in America. And when it comes to Southern women, we have a storied history of activism.

From fighting for civil rights to advancing labor rights and economic equality in Appalachia, Southern women have nearly two centuries of activism behind them, from which we can learn a great deal.

RECONSTRUCTION

During the Civil War, many white women had to step into new roles while their husbands, fathers, and other male relatives were at war. This change in responsibilities laid the framework for women’s continued engagement in public life after the war and during the Reconstruction era.

Added to that was a shift from a society that was dependent upon enslaved labor to one that required paid labor. Many women from lower classes entered the workforce, while women from higher classes found themselves becoming activists.

A push for more education was a significant facet of activism at the time, as women recognized education was key to empowerment. Many white women became teachers during this period, though they faced resistance from society for doing so, and laid the groundwork for the South’s public education system.

The Reconstruction Era also saw the emergence of a multitude of women’s organizations, which focused on social welfare, education, and healthcare. These organizations marked a prominent step forward for Southern women’s activism.

Of course, it wasn’t only white women who became activists and reformers; Black women were engaging in activism, as well. They were seeking reform in civil rights and education, for the most part, and advocating to have their needs met for continued survival. However, their experiences were markedly different from those of white women, as they didn’t only face sexism but also racism.

Newly freed Black women sought out educational reforms as a pathway to not only empowerment but also liberation. Women like Mary McLeod Bethune established schools and encouraged girls to pursue education. [1] Organizations advocating for education and literacy emerged, too, such as the National Association of Colored Women.

This period also saw the emergence of voices advocating for civil rights. Ida B. Wells is one such voice, a well-known activist and journalist who placed emphasis on the fact that Black people were being denied their basic rights. Wells risked her life, too, to highlight the horrors of lynching and other violence. In 1892, she published the well-known “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases,” which resulted in Wells becoming the most visible anti-lynching activist in the U.S. [2]

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CIVIL RIGHTS

Montgomery was the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement, and Southern women, particularly Black women, played a significant role.

One of the most prominent Southern women involved in the Civil Rights Movement was, of course, Rosa Parks, who became known as the "mother of the modern-day civil rights movement." [3] We all know the story of how she refused to give up her bus seat despite the laws of the time, but Parks had a history of activism even before that.

Parks joined the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1943 and eventually became chapter secretary. During her time there, she worked on criminal justice, particularly on ensuring Black people who'd been sexually assaulted by white people would receive justice in court and protecting Black men from false accusations and the violence those accusations brought. [4]

However, it was her refusal to give up her seat that sparked the creation of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 381 days until the Supreme Court ruled segregation unconstitutional. Although Parks and her family ended up moving after the boycott due to threats and harassment, she continued to lend support to civil rights causes after her retirement.

Then, there was Annie Pearl Avery, who joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) when she was sixteen. [5] Though she had joined a group engaged in nonviolent protest, Avery could stand up for herself. At a protest in Montgomery, she wowed onlookers when she grabbed the upraised club of a white policeman who had already beaten several protesters and asked him, "Now what are you going to do, motherfucker?” [6] She was arrested several times for her activism, was on the Edmund Pettis Bridge during Bloody Sunday, and worked on many a voter registration drive in the South.

Yet another Black heroine from the era is Unita Zelma Blackwell from Mississippi. When activists from the SNCC came to her town to talk about the voting rights of Black Americans, they made an impression, and Blackwell was one of eight people who went the next week to take the (discriminatory) voter registration test. In Mississippi, doing this could end in death for Black Americans; thankfully, this wasn't the case for Blackwell. However, she and her husband (who had joined her) were both fired from their jobs as a result of attempting to register, as well as denied welfare payments. The SNCC stepped up to send them money regularly during this time, and over the next few months, Blackwell tried three more times to pass the test. She finally did that autumn and became a registered voter. The following year, she testified before the United States Commission on Civil Rights about this experience. [7]

Blackwell's work didn't end there. In 1964, she founded the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party to counter the existing whites-only Democratic Party. She also co-founded the Mississippi Action Community Education the same year and, altogether, was arrested 70+ times during the Civil Rights Movement. In 1976, she became the first elected Black female mayor in the state of Mississippi.

The Civil Rights Movement saw a wealth of Black Southern women activists, although white women were also involved. Many young white women joined the SNCC, initially working in the offices or organizing on campuses. The SNCC eventually allowed white people to begin doing more with the group outside the office or white-only spaces. However, it wasn't always ideal, as there were sometimes issues due to an undertow of oppression, along with racial and sexual tension. [8] In fact, by 1965, positions for white women in the SNCC were in significant decline, though white women engaged in activism elsewhere, whether in different groups or protesting in the streets.

LABOR & WELFARE

When it comes to labor reform, Appalachian women of all races have been active participants, and many faced significant pushback.

Women in the 1920s and 1930s sought to improve conditions for factory workers and women. One such woman was Lucy Randolph Mason from Virginia, who worked with the National Consumers' League in conjunction with the Southern Council on Women and Children in Industry to make public attitudes more favorable to better working conditions for women and children in factories and to promote legislation addressing child labor. [9]

Then there was Mary Octavine Cowper, who did a case study in 1925 on cotton mill villages and critiqued a capitalist system that exploited and destroyed women and children for profit. Cowper advocated for mandatory public education, child labor laws, child-care programs, shorter working hours, and health and safety regulations. [10]

Appalachian women of the 1960s and 1970s were also active in advocating for labor reform. Women (and some men) created broad coalitions that included white and Black women.

Edith Easterling lived in coal county in eastern Kentucky in the 1960s and was already politically active when she started working with a young antipoverty activist who was part of the Appalachian Volunteers group. Easterling worked with others to organize working-class and poor people in the area, running a library and community center that offered education on labor history and welfare rights. [11]

West Virginia activist Shelva Thompson thought the best way to build solidarity in the working class was through welfare rights.

She stated, “There’s not just one group of oppressed people in the mountains. We’ve got miners, we’ve got welfare recipients, we’ve got blacks, Indians. But the government until now has kept those groups fighting each other till they never had time to fight the oppressor. And hopefully Appalachia is waking up.” [12]

Thompson placed emphasis on women’s unpaid caregiving labor in the coalfields and class solidarity. She argued that people going hungry was due to capitalists paying low wages, illness was due to industries polluting the environment and denying health care, and that women were the ones left to care for others when the economy failed.

Women in these coalitions often dealt with pushback, which came in the form of abuse from their husbands, the Kentucky Unamerican Activities Committee, arrests (primarily for Black women and men), and violence. Corporations and governments were aware that if working-class and poor people began working together, it could bring about real change, and fought to divide these groups along racial and gender lines to prevent change from happening.

Unfortunately, though labor and welfare reform coalitions were often multi-racial in the 1960s, white women’s activism was centered, and their stories were told more often due to racial discrimination and violence that erased Black and other women of color’s stories.

However, two well-known Black women activists of the time were Joan White and Amy Parks of the West Virginia Welfare Rights Organization. These women engaged in demonstrations, campaigning to force out a commissioner, lawsuits, and more. As a result, the Welfare Department targeted them, accusing them of welfare fraud. If found guilty, they would both face five years in prison. Both women refused to take plea bargains, choosing to fight, and soon became cause célèbre. Welfare activists from all over Appalachia came out to support them — in the streets outside the court, in the courtroom, and even in regional magazines. Thankfully, White was cleared of charges, while Parks was found not guilty. [13]

QUEER

Of course, we can't forget the many queer Southern women (and allies) working to achieve a more inclusive and equitable future for the LGBTQ+ community.

bell hooks is, of course, one of the most well-known queer Southern voices. hooks hailed from Kentucky and spent her life sharing her voice with others, whether through her literary works, teaching, or the institution she created. Her numerous literary works focused on feminism and the intersectionality of gender, race, and capitalism. [14]

Minnie Bruce Pratt, from Alabama, was another writer, educator, and activist. She helped found WomanWrites in 1977, a Southeastern lesbian writers' conference. Syracuse University, where she taught at the time, also invited her to help create the first LGBT studies program there. In 1987, she was part of the protest of the Bowers v. Hardwick sodomy law decision and was among the first arrested. [15]

Angela Davis, originally from Birmingham, may be best known for being a member of the Black Panther Party and Communist Party. She gained international fame in the early 1970s after being brought up on charges of having been part of a prison escape attempt. She spent 18 months in jail but was later acquitted. She came out as a lesbian in 1997 and has continuously worked to tackle the oppression experienced by women, the Black community, and the LGBQT+ community. [16]

Mab Segrest, also from Alabama, is a lesbian feminist, activist, writer, and educator. She has founded and served on a number of boards for social justice organizations throughout her life, as well as written and spoken about classism, sexism, homophobia, and racism. She helped found North Carolinians Against Racist and Religious Violence in the mid-1980s and is credited by some for ridding North Carolina of the Ku Klux Klan. [17]

FINAL THOUGHTS

Southern women have been involved in activism for centuries, fighting for progress in various areas, including women’s rights, civil rights, labor reforms, and a more just and equitable society. There have been a few stumbles along the journey, as can occur in broad coalitions, but the lesson learned from Southern women’s history is that by working together, we truly can accomplish anything. Even if the odds sometimes seem stacked against us.

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A History of Southern Women’s Activism

By Misty Layne

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