Answer:
Explanation:
To break such a large topic down to a thesis length argument, this project focuses
on five women who particularly affected the Mississippi agitation for voting equality:
Clarie Collins Harvey, Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Jackson Gray Adams, Unita
Blackwell, and Casey Hayden. Featuring these particular women is not intended to
insinuate in any way that they are more important than women not featured; far too many
women played significant and heroic roles in the Mississippi struggle to feature all of
them. Rather, the hope of this research is to illuminate five particular heroines.
Clarie Collins Harvey founded Womanpower Unlimited to assist jailed Freedom
Riders and quickly built a full-fledged Civil Rights organization from it. Fannie Lou
Hamer grew up on a cotton plantation in the Mississippi Delta; a viciously cruel
environment which sculpted her into a brazen and forceful campaigner against the
atrocities of Jim Crow economics. Victoria Jackson Gray Adams organized many
meetings and rallies in the extremely dangerous Hattiesburg area and taught African
Americans the essential reading and citizenship knowledge needed to pass registration
tests. Unita Blackwell rose from political novice to helping organize the Mississippi
Freedom Democrat Party. Casey Hayden was a founding member of the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) who brought her fierce anti-segregation
beliefs and organizational talents to the Mississippi movement from east Texas via
Atlanta.
Though these women may have engaged in different activities, the common
thread throughout all of their activism was concentration on grassroots-level organization
