 Good evening and welcome welcome. My name is Emily Orlando. I'm director of the women gender and sexuality studies program And it's my first item of business to introduce you to our very generous sponsor Dr. Ron Davidson director of the Humanities Institute of the College of Arts and Sciences, which has made this possible So please give them a warm welcome Now a word from your sponsor The Humanities Institute of the College of Arts and Sciences is pleased to be able to support the celebration of women's history and black history In Dr. Jennifer Scallan's address on Anna Arnold Hedgeman and the historical narratives of black women's activism And I would add beyond Rosa Parks who was wonderful, but there is more We have recently seen an overdue attention to the contribution of black women to our national welfare And are pleased to support this reminder of their impact The Humanities Institute was formed from a 1983 national endowment for the humanities challenge grant Which should motivate you all to inform your colleagues your members of Congress as To the excellent work that NEH does for otherwise, we would not be here today The Humanities Institute is dedicated to the support of the faculty and the students in the departments included in the school of the Humanities as well as those working in qualitative methods across the college and the university at large Join me in celebrating this presentation. Thank you Thank you, Dr. Davidson So again, I'm director of WDSS and also associate professor of English and I first must if you could indulge me I need to recognize the many Bodies who've made this event possible The WDSS coordinating committee our program assistant Alexa Molletti who just won a service award for excellence our grad assistant Yes, our graduate assistant Tess Piergastini Our generous caterer Sodexo the media center marketing communication Dr. Virginia Kelly and Our specific generous sponsors again the Humanities Institute of the College of Arts and Sciences In addition the the assistant dean of students public lectures an event the departments of history politics also sociology and anthropology the programs in peace and justice studies Black studies and of course WGSS and my colleagues doctors doctors Liz whole and Colleen errant program Co-directors for this event. We're grateful to them for taking the lead on this initiative I do want to say a couple of quick words about the history of this program Which was launched in the fall of 1993, which many of us will remember Bill Clinton was in office Whitney Houston was topping the charts with I will always love you you can have that in your head all night You're welcome And this is the season when the women gender and sexuality studies program was born then called women's studies Dr. Yohana Garvey of English who's here with us tonight Dr. Lucy Katz of the school of business served as co-directors for what was then known as women's studies And I also have to thank dr. Yohana Garvey director now of black studies for her work in making this whole event possible So this program as many of you know is positively thriving It's approaching its silver anniversary and we have record numbers of students reaching out and signing on to the minor We don't really have to recruit anymore last spring. We had a record 53 We now have 63 as of this afternoon So 63 students are committing to study the interdiscipline field of women gender and sexuality studies and I think the current political climate has something to do with that and it's Inspired a lot of active activism in surprising and unlikely places So while it's always a good idea to do what Beyonce says now more than ever is a good time to get in Formation so I would like to briefly introduce my excellent colleague dr. Liz whole Historian visiting assistant professor in history who's connected with WGSS and black studies And she will then introduce our keynote speaker dr. Jennifer Scanlon. Thank you How's everybody tonight? That good come on. How's everyone tonight? Okay, you're ready. You're ready. I also have to give a shout out to dr. Who Williams who's here our intrepid Dean? So we are honored to welcome Jennifer Scanlon interim dean for academic affairs and Professor of gender sexuality and women's studies at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine Brunswick, Maine a U.S. women's history scholar professor Scanlon is a distinguished lecture for the organization of American historians She has also served as executive director of the coordinating council for women in history an affiliate of the American Historical Association Her work has appeared in a wide array of journals and edited volumes her previous book I love this title bad girls go everywhere The life of Helen girly-brown That work explored the working-class roots of Brown's controversial form of feminism It was named a book of the times and received significant acclaim in publications ranging from People magazine to the Wall Street Journal Tonight dr. Scanlon will talk about Anna Arnold Hedgeman The subject of her recent biography published last spring by Oxford University Press Entitled until there is justice the life of Anna Arnold Hedgeman And if you look at the back of the room, you'll notice that we have a representative from the bookstore here And you can pick up a copy The New York Times Reviewer called it the first and long overdue biography of a dynamic Activists who played a key role in over half a century of social justice initiatives from the 1920s through the 1970s Dr. Scanlon has made an important contribution to the growing body of scholarship on the long black freedom struggle and women's role within it In addition, Hedgeman's life and work exemplify the links among civil rights feminist and faith-based activism There is much to be learned from that life and work Especially as Scanlon uncovered her quote lifelong practice of questioning and challenging common assumptions About race gender Christian ethics providing an invaluable lens and Music an invaluable lens to explore social change and the cost to those who make it happen Hedgeman was an integral part of many initiatives in an astonishing variety of places She was a leader in the YWCA an assistant in the Office of Civilian Defense during World War two part of the Wagner administration in New York City member of the Planning Committee for the 1963 March on Washington and co-founder of the National Organization for Women Dr. Scanlon does an admiral job in depicting the persistence integrity and imagination Hedgeman brought to the public arena She also sketches a portrait of the activists as mentor colleague and half of an egalitarian marriage Through her meticulous research, we encounter the remarkable Anna Arnold Hedgeman a woman who lived by these words Human rights for all are indivisible. Please join me and welcome me dr. Jennifer Scanlon Thank you so much professor whole. Thank you professor Orlando It really is of enormous enormous pleasure for me to be here with you this evening. So thanks everybody for coming out You know when you spend a lot of time With an individual as I have with an Arnold Hedgeman. It's really a treat to be able to share Information about her life with other people. So thanks very much for being here Just about one year ago pop singer Beyonce released her six studio album Lemonade an accompanying film with the same title and the formation music video Purposefully powerfully and for some definitively providing a narrative of critical themes in black American women's history oppression resistance cultural connection embodied existence sisterhood The term Formation has been since on many people's minds as they think through the multiple References in the film and music video and more generally about how African-American women navigate the world Tonight I'd like to reference formation in two ways first in terms of configuration The arrangement of something in particular the notion of getting Information of standing up to something alongside others and then also in terms of creation The process of forming something the laying of foundation Molina Matsukas Beyonce's longtime music video director an eclectic seeker of inspiration Consulted a range of sources as she always does to help visually and verbally Continue the story Beyonce had initiated and in the process drew on other black women including Octavia Butler Maya Angelou and Tony Morrison Tonight I'd like to introduce you to another woman Matsukas and Beyonce could look to for inspiration Anna Arnold Hedgeman Who stood alongside and in opposition to power structures who stood in formation and who created Who provided a means or as June Jordan puts it away out of no way for others in the long arc of black womanhood in the United States Hedgeman and so many other lesser known women were in Both senses of the term formation Fictive kin putative ancestors shoulder providing allies There are many stories. I could tell about Hedgeman Born in 1899 Over a century ago Growing up the eldest child in the only black family in the small town of Inoka, Minnesota I could tell of her early experiences with racism with lower Expectations because she was a girl or with the many ways those came together as they do and Drove her to become a teacher in Mississippi following her college graduation. I Could tell you how she learned to steer clear of white men and deferred a black men or how she learned not to do either selectively I Could share with you her firsts the first African-American graduate of Hamlin University in St. Paul leader of the first attempt by African-Americans to collectively use their financial resources to influence a presidential election The first black person and woman to serve in a mayoral cabinet in New York City The keynote speaker at the first conference of African women and women of African descent in the newly independent Ghana But this evening. I thought I would focus on Anna Arnold's formative efforts in a single year 1963 Not because it's the one year that makes her story more meaningful or meaningful But because it's a chance to think in more rich ways About the year of Dr. Martin Luther King juniors I have a dream speech and the complications of relations of all sorts race and gender as we look backward and arguably forward In 1963 the United States commemorated the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation our nation's deliberate step toward racial justice Life had changed in meaningful ways for African-Americans in the long hundred years since the end of slavery with manifestations of freedom evident in the most pedestrian and the most profound ways The US government as a result looked for ways to celebrate But many people found themselves in little mood to rejoice Jim Crow operated in full force in the south in 1963 and The promise of the north had proven limited rather than limitless for the millions of African-Americans who had participated in the great migration That brought them from Memphis to Minneapolis Nashville to Newark Racism lingered lives languished Anna Ardell Hedgeman Who had been engaged in racial justice efforts for four full decades by now? Was experiencing a crisis of faith I? Could find no progress she wrote I could find no progress for myself or any other Negro Anna Hedgeman had always viewed government as an ally But a reluctant one and it remained hard to pierce the armor of civic and legislative reluctance at the beginning of 1963 when it came to implementing the rights of African-Americans to decent education Affordable and habitable housing good jobs with decent wages and Opportunity as understood more generally the federal government equivocated and State and local governments reneged Even as civil rights workers and citizens across the south continued to face unfathomable acts of violence In the absence of adequate government response to continued Discrimination other institutions attempted to step up one such group made up of more than 700 Catholic Jewish and Protestant religious leaders Including Anna Arnold Hedgeman convened in Chicago to commemorate the Emancipation Proclamation Centennial and decide collectively how to address racism the nation's most serious domestic evil Given the Catholic and Jesuit history of Fairfield University It would be valuable to know the university's history in relation to this story This meeting the national conference on religion and race the first Significant gathering to address race and religion at the same time Was chaired by Benjamin Mays president of Morehouse College and mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr. God is the creator of all mankind or he is the creator of no part of it Mays wrote he is the father of all or he is the father of none either all or none Dr. King also present at this meeting Urged conference goers to push for racial justice in their lives their churches and their communities Since religion he said deals not only with the hereafter, but also with the here That sentiment certainly resonated for Anna Arnold Hedgeman whose theological approach Approach had for decades focused on the here and now The here and now she would say is the world Jesus was sent to For Hedgeman. This was the world to change. This was the world to make just Hedgeman was at the conference on religion and race Representing church women united an Ecumenical Christian group that had long fought against racism outside its doors and racist practices within She sat there for four days at the conference watching this large group Vote on progressive civil rights initiatives But aside from Mays King and Hedgeman Very few black spokespersons were in attendance Issues of concern to the black church those churches ministering to predominantly African-American Congregations were wholly absent Hedgeman had to wonder could these white leaders implement or even imagine how to implement the civil rights platform They so enthusiastically and unanimously adopted Did a meeting of this sort she wondered really do anything more than expiate white guilt Hedgeman grew increasingly frustrated during the four-day event and on the last day she took to the floor to protest It was the same old story. She lamented black serving as porters of the conference Providing a means by which to talk about race But American Christianity Regardless of the emancipation proclamation centennial and regardless of stated principles Continue to recreate itself in its own unchanged image Hedgeman had been dealing with these issues for 40 years by now Since her earliest days in the YWCA in the 1920s When she had tried to convince white Protestant women that segregation in a young women's Christian organization contradicted God's law She found it hard to contain her frustration now Finding herself once again calling on white religious leaders to replace well-meaning gestures with the far more difficult task of Christian practice In the coming months the National Council of Churches One of the sponsors of the conference would tackle these same questions and in the summer of 1963 the council would offer Hedgeman the opportunity she had been preparing for all her life even if she didn't know it to be deliberate and to be employed in Interpreting Christianity as a vehicle for racial justice on a national scale The headquarters of the National Council of Churches was in the inter-church Center a large square building on the west side of Manhattan Sometimes called the God Box or the Protestant Vatican It was across the street from Riverside Church in a New York City neighborhood That is also home to Union Theological Seminary and Jewish Theological Seminary the National Council of Churches at the very center of religious of liberal religious power in the United States represented more than 30 Christian denominations The organization saw itself doing for Protestant Christianity what the UN did for the world Promoting an international justice focused worldview Hedgeman had a long association with Church Women United an Agency at the core of the National Council of Churches that consistently challenged the overwhelmingly male leadership of the larger body While its most vocal detractors considered the National Council of Churches a radical if not a communist Organization for promoting racial equality Church Women United had the opposite complaint that the nation that the National Council's positions were far too tame That was emblematic of women's organizations within larger rights organizations Standing in formation seeing and calling out the multiplicity of injustice the intersectionality of oppression It was not just religious leaders who were talking about the necessity of commemorating the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation with real action in the last week of May 1963 Following a civil rights campaign in Birmingham, Alabama That saw police set attack dogs and fire hoses on children a Group of black leaders and public intellectuals met with Attorney General Robert Kennedy After a rancorous meeting Both sides left dissatisfied The Attorney General was taken aback by the hostility the African-American group expressed toward the federal government The African-American leaders were incredulous that Kennedy did not understand that being black meant being enraged much of the time After all it was not just a hundred years since the Emancipation Proclamation It was already nearly ten years since Brown v. Board of Education specifically outlined segregated schools, but in most of the country segregation and vastly inferior inferior education for black students continued it Isn't only what's happening to you Explain novelist James Baldwin that evening, but what's happening all around you all the time in the face of the most extraordinary and criminal indifference the indifference and ignorance of most white people in this country Frustrated by their lack of common ground with political leaders and in search of more ready allies The group turned to the white Protestant leaders and met with them at the Harlem YWCA Most of these leaders were from the National Council of Churches Every one of the white religious leaders that met with Baldwin and the rest of the group believed they were clean as one put it That they were without prejudice and on the right side of social justice A few of them had been on freedom rides or worked in fellowship with black churches All had participated in some kind of civil rights activities They believed in the same Jesus Anna Hedgeman believed in a justice loving Jesus They believed they had arrived at this meeting with their credentials established But they had not been invited to the meeting to be lauded instead Black leaders wanted to know where the churches planned to stand While African Americans continued being denied their most basic rights Or were beaten or killed when they tried to exercise them During a long night of intense heated conversation James Baldwin and the others Essentially accused these white religious leaders of being the man At the next general board meeting of the National National Council of Churches, a group of these white religious leaders Decided that they had to take some steps some real steps some big steps to desegregate church life Push for civil rights legislation and foment direct community action They understood that regardless of the unanimity expressed at the national conference A few months earlier Regardless of the recent publication of Dr. King's letter from Birmingham jail Petitioning the nation's leadership for action The conference goals simply had not been implemented So the board responded positively and the statements that came out that night Formed a kind of a bible for progressive Christians They said this words and declarations are no longer useful in the struggle Christians had to stand up to their peers and share In the experiences black Americans were subjected to on the pathway to racial justice Including personal indignities alienation and actual physical violence White Christians were pressed to acknowledge and then accept that there would be a price to pay For what they called the tardy obedience of christ's people where racial justice was concerned The most notable outcome of this meeting was the founding of the national council of churches commission on religion and race A department of the council that would have unprecedented operational freedom The actual power to move its constituent churches to become Alongside the u.s. government and existing civil rights Organizations a third force in the civil rights movement Additionally and critically the commission's target audience was not southern racists Or recalcitrant political leaders But its own enormous constituency of more than 40 million members almost half of american voters The great white middle class of protestants who belong to perhaps the most segregated institution in the land the church Now is the time for action the group declared inviting catholic and jewish leaders to share in the commitment Even costly action they wanted that could jeopardize the organizational goals and institutional structures of the church And disrupt any fellowship that was less than fully obedient to the anti-racist laws of the church The commission on religion and race brought together a group of young activist highly motivated religious leaders whose aim was to change church culture Unlike more conservative christian leaders who wanted to be in the world, but not of it These progressive believe progressives believed christians had to get out They wanted those at the top to lead their congregations into social justice work rather than follow them They decided that whether than rate wait for congregants to act they would model and demand such christian practice The leadership largely white and exclusively male Began to form the commission from an impressive interracial group that included reverend martin luther king jr Labor leader victor royther and a number of college presidents Like all national council of churches projects the commission on religion and race needed big names on top And well known hard-working staff members on the ground People who could not only execute but also step in to influence the commission's policies These roles are often as many of you know occupied by women In this case the staff was initially small and exclusively white and male But anna arnold hedgman who was hired as the coordinator of special projects proved a key appointment Within a few months her temporary position became permanent And she worked for the national council of churches for the next four and a half years As one of only four african americans on the commission Serving as director of special projects Director of ecumenical action associate director for racial justice She had so much to offer She had by now served in municipal state and federal government Run for political office worked as a lobbyist and social worker and organized successful grassroots mobilizations Her previous years in dc Advocating for permanent fair employment of citizens of color Would help the commission play a role in implementing civil rights legislation Including president kennedy's recently introduced comprehensive civil rights bill Hedgeman was one of the most respected lay persons with strong ecumenical religious ties Active and social justice work in the entire country In addition to her works within the national council of churches her links, excuse me within the national council of churches She served on the national board of the national Conference of christians and jews She had and she had had success moving whites and blacks to religious as well as political action Finally, she had a significant following in harlem where she was proudly called dr. Hedgeman Since receiving an honorary degree from hamlin university in 1948 Rue hedgeman whose foundational work was deep the commission on religion and race would gain powerful links In new york city labor and political organizations Two years earlier, a philip randolph had called on her to head up his emergency committee for unity on social and economic problems Initially founded to protest housing discrimination and police failure to curtail drug dealing in black communities Under hedgeman's direction, this broad-based coalition successfully supported the hospital worker union's efforts to implement the minimum wage For black white and port ureken hospital workers in new york city Hedgeman had recruited and worked closely with malchim x Then a young minister with the nation of islam whose vehement denunciations of christianity Had the white religious community Including the national council of churches quite nervous Hedgeman's skill at reaching across such enormous divides would be a great boon To a largely white commission trying to do more than just talk about social change In the commission on religion and race Hedgeman was a black person among whites a layperson among clergy and a woman among men She was nonetheless a christian among christians and determined to hold them all To what she called their commitment as children of god to justice for all men If some of the men on the commission had a problem with her assertiveness and they did They could not deny her intelligence or her judgment Equally importantly and again in 1963 Just before this appointment. She also accepted another invitation From her occasional collaborator a philip randolph To join a five member committee to explore a march on washington to demand jobs and economic justice It's time for the masses of people to move again randolph explained At the initial meeting to his carefully selected group of african-american allies Or men and hedgeman this one woman There was no debating that too many black americans continued to live in dire circumstances And hedgeman agreed with randolph that the solution was decent work with decent wages The post-war economic boom had bypassed too many urban communities Hedgeman thought that a march on washington might be what people Particularly young people needed to help them feel empowered to tackle relentless discrimination So by the end of that initial meeting she and the other of randolph's advisors agreed to join him In organizing what they called 100 years after the emancipation proclamation The emancipation march for jobs Committee members left that first meeting determined to get support from the major civil rights organizations And at hedgeman's insistence from a variety of women's organizations as well She proposed that representatives of groups including the national association of colored women's clubs The national council of negro women and various black sororities be added to the administrative committee Both to make the committee more effective And to recognize the contributions black women had made to the movement for freedom The national council of negro women numbering at that point nearly 800 000 she pointed out was no insignificant ally But sexism which hedgeman had been calling attention to for decades Was woven into the fabric of civil rights work The men did not listen to her in treaties to fully include women or did not care As usual she explained later The men must have discussed the matter in my absence And when the first leaflet was printed I was embarrassed to find that I was still the only woman listed This kind of sidelining would only grow worse as the weeks wore on and the work leading up to the march ramped up The committee soon learned that martin luther king junior southern leadership southern christian leadership council or sclc Was also considering organizing a march Not to support jobs specifically but to support the passage of civil rights legislation Hedgeman urged her group to coordinate with the southern movement and combine energies toward one mass action She arranged a meeting between king and randolph at which the two were able to iron out their differences sufficiently to move forward Planning began for an event scheduled for august 28th 1963 And called the march on washington for jobs and freedom recognizing a dual emphasis on the end of jim crow in the south And improved jobs housing wages and education in the north The reference to the emancipation proclamation was dropped from the march's name Although as you see it was still used by some But the group held on to its promise of freedom And it held on to an arnold hedgeman who remained on the administrative committee Still and throughout the only woman but a key player in reaching across the many divides that threaten the success of the march Ironically, of course Sometimes standing in formation is a lonely stance Hedgeman now had two official roles working for the commission on religion and race And working on the administrative committee for the march on washington She would expertly bring the two together Specifically to live up to its promise to foment change in the church commission on religion and race Asked an arnold hedgeman to find 30 000 white protestants Along with large numbers of white catholics and jews to participate in the march Who else could have done that in 1963? Hedgeman accepted the challenge Along with randolph's challenge and went to work moving back and forth Between the national council of churches offices on the west side and the march's administrative office in central harlem The line between her commission work and her administrative work as you would imagine blurred considerably The administrative committee worked on refining and promoting the purpose of the march Focusing on randolph's jobs agenda and king's legislative emphasis Its demands may sound familiar to you today And included passage of effective and meaningful civil rights legislation And end to police brutality against people engaged in peaceful protest A massive federal works program to provide jobs for the unemployed A permanent fair employment practices commission And a national minimum wage that would reach previously uncovered workers and industries Fundraising was a key aspect of the work for the march The group ordered buttons to sell and asked for money from each of the organizations it worked with Asking marchers to contribute to pay for one unemployed person to attend the march for every three who paid their own way If there were no unemployed people where they lived Participating marchers were asked to raise the money anyway and send it directly to the national office As the administrative committee wrestled with logistics and here in this image you see Them literally planning out the the march along the mall They faced dozens of issues How would hundreds of thousands of people get into and out of the nation's capital? Where would the marchers get food? How could they distribute enough water in the august heat? Could marchers be persuaded to leave their children home? Would the district of columbia police provide adequate support? The committee held meeting after meeting to iron out logistics and get information out to participants Building on its existing organizational networks and establishing new ones the committee the committee coordinated recruitment efforts clear across the country With anna arnold hedgeman's help. They secured unprecedented cooperation in new york city The buses would run on a rush hour schedule after midnight the night before the march To help people get out to the grand caravan of 600 buses leaving the city 450 of them from harlem bridge and tunnel authorities passed out leaflets with march information at the toll booths And hedgeman persuaded mayor wagner one of her former bosses to designate august 28th a holiday For city workers who wanted to travel to dc for the march At the same time hedgeman was working on drawing tens of thousands of white people to the march a formidable task Without actually coming out and saying that the presence of so many black people made a peaceful event unlikely The press played up the potential for violence The district of columbia ordered all liquor stores and bars to close Many members of congress ordered their female staff members to stay home And some stores packed away their merchandise away in warehouses to avoid looting Patrick o'boyle the archbishop of washington dc Wrote a letter instructing nuns in his diocese to stay away from the march Even though he was delivering the invocation As the washington daily news put it the general feeling is that the vandals are coming to sac rome Hedgeman was not alone in finding the assumptions of violence troubling Or noting that at the same time white violence against african americans was vastly under reported Now however such distortions had significant consequences for her work Many of the white people she was recruiting had never been to the nation's capital Had never spent much time around black people. They hardly needed reasons to be scared off Determined to overcome the bad publicity and white americans unconscious racism Hedgeman drew on her long-standing relationships in government and in the religious and women's community she was a part of She worked tirelessly to get the message out to white religious americans about the hazards of racism in their lives as well as in the lives of black americans Hedgeman spent countless hours on the telephone asking church leaders to mobilize their members to make the trip Always reminding them that this was an opportunity to act on their christianity rather than to just preach about it She targeted among others white christians from the south who as she put it Feel concerned but have all too little opportunity to express it in their home place She persuaded the national council of churches to hold its annual convention in washington dc during the week of the march Anna hedgeman hoped she was building something larger and more lasting than a one-day protest The march on washington was a necessity, but to her it was only a beginning She tried to turn anyone she came into contact with into an active ally in the ongoing fight for racial justice She orchestrated bell ringing ceremonies in churches across the country on august 28th So those who remained home would feel part of a nationwide event She instructed everyone whether they attended or not to contact their legislatures Laying a foundation for a vast network that would continue after the march She knew her next goal would be the president's civil rights legislation And she contacted clergy and laypeople in christian Jewish and ecumenical groups across the u.s Reminding them of the work that would come in later By early august of 1963 report started to stream in suggesting That tens of thousands of white protestants had made their commitment Momentum grew and it began to feel as though there was no stopping people from going One man roller skated from chicago to washington dc An 81 year old woman got on a plane for the first time And a group of 21 young people walked from new york city to the nation's capital On the organizing committee end Hedgeman issued press releases for marchers with instructions on what to carry Where to go how to line up The administrative committee worked with the public health director of washington dc to ensure that there would be enough first aid stations 2000 police 2000 national guard troops and 200 park police were on hand And 4 000 members of the army and marines were on alert A separate group of 2 000 volunteer peacekeepers Many of them from the guardians and organization of new york city's black police officers signed up The committee tried to secure a thousand beds in washington in case people did not follow instructions to return home immediately after the march The details seemed endless and hedgeman became exhausted But her faith that nonviolent mass power could radically change her nation kept her working In her national council of churches role Hedgeman fearing that some people would not find enough to eat Took responsibility for operation sandwich a mammoth effort 400 interracial interfaith volunteers recruited from churches and synagogues across new york city Gathered at riverside church early on the day before the march Working with a catering firm that had volunteered its services operation sandwich put together 80,000 box lunches Hedgeman and her co-workers used walkie-talkies to coordinate the massive joyful effort Just after noon Following a sandwich blessing ceremony that you see there The first in a line of refrigerated trucks left for a warehouse in washington Where the lunches were stored overnight for the next day's onslaught of hungry demonstrators Operation sandwich was only one of the many minor and major aspects of the march Hedgeman was busy juggling in the final days She pushed right up to the end to get white people from around the country To the nation's capital to demand racial justice Many of her concerns in the final days were administrative or logistical Including health and sanitation issues the potential for disruptive white supremacists And celebrities expecting special treatment She also tried unsuccessfully to push the male organizers to add a woman to the slate of speakers Many believed that woman should have been hedgeman herself But the men would not relent In their view no women would have speaking roles at the march August 28th was a perfect day for the march sunny and warm not too hot or humid Before the buses began to pass through the baltimore harbour tunnel at a rate of 100 per hour Masses of volunteers had set up rest areas a stage first aid stations and food service areas The biggest problem was ultimately a good one for the march organizers to have The anticipated crowd of a hundred thousand grew to a quarter of a million and every resource was taxed People piled off buses and spilled out of trains More than a thousand reporters were on hand as were dignitaries of all kinds Two planes from hollywood brought such stars as harry belafonte Rita marino sammy javis jr And marlon brando to washington another plane carrying robert shelton The imperial grand wizard of one of the most notorious factions of the kkk crashed on its way to the march Tempering the plans of the white supremacists on site The procession was so large that it took three hours to reach the lincoln memorial After the star spangled banner and a religious invocation A philip randolph opened the three-hour program with a speech in which he proclaimed that the march Rather than an end in itself was a beginning quote not only for the negro But for all americans who thirst for freedom and a better life When martin luther king jr. The moral leader of the nation Delivered the speech for which the day will always be remembered Anna hedgeman like hundreds of thousands of others was captivated by his poetic utopian vision In a masterful oratory king invited americans to share his dream of realizing the freedom the emancipation Proclamation had promised a century earlier We cannot walk alone. He said we cannot turn back Dr. King acknowledged that though much had changed since the end of the civil war Too much had not I have a dream he said That one day even the state of mississippi A state sweltering with the heat of injustice Sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice Eugene carcin blake Anna hedgeman's boss and the first white speaker at the march Urged his people to embrace change We come late. We come but we come he said Talking about white Protestants and indirectly crediting the work. Anna hedgeman had done Recruiting all those white christians to the march In the end an estimated 40,000 people marched under the national council of church's banner and an estimated 50 to 60,000 white people attended the march Anna arnold hedgeman was directly responsible for drawing the majority of the whites who attended the march on washington In august 1963 100 years after the emancipation proclamation She had moved white america one step closer to racial justice One step closer to joining what randolph called the advance guard of a massive moral revolution Her contribution was not recognized publicly, but it was real and it was profound Anna arnold hedgeman spent her life trying to know and act out a christian practice of social justice in the world Sorry in the world. Jesus actually lived in She cared deeply for the dignity and welfare of all people But she acted most passionately on behalf of the dispossessed So many human actions ran counter to what she had learned at home at church and in the bible But racial discrimination Which distorted the lives of white americans as surely as it did of those of color Became her most fierce political religious and personal adversary She fought it in her neighborhood In her church in politics and in social organizations of all kinds She complained at one point that she had wasted her talents by devoting her professional life to the eradication of racism But once the fight claimed her there was no turning back Present and influential in a remarkable array of civil rights efforts over the course of her lifetime Anna hedgeman exemplified the long duration Diverse approaches and hard-won successes of the black freedom movement She fought for workplace dignity in the 1920s Access to civil service jobs in the 1930s Equal opportunity in military-related employment during the second world war Fair employment after the war Desegregation of the nation's capital in the post-war period Feminism and a desegregated and activist church in the 1960s and black economic power in the 1970s For these efforts. She has garnered some limited recognition Her portrait is hung in the national portrait gallery And her name graces a few schools streets and scholarships But until now Anna Arnold hedgeman has fallen victim to the same kind of invisibility she fought against all her life In truth, it is too easy not to see her In part because the difficulty we have in talking simultaneously About race and the other critical component of her identity gender When we explore the history of the national council of churches Even the commission on religion and race were likely to see white rather than black male rather than female and religious rather than secular leadership When we explore the history of the 1963 march on washington We see intrepid men delivering moving speeches And both hedgeman and her critical work on behalf of racial justice before During and after the march are rendered invisible Yet for all the difficulty we have in viewing the whole of ann arnold hedgeman In seeing her as black as female as a secular but devoted christian As a new yorker as a civil rights leader and as an independent progressive democrat Those identities came together in her life and her efforts for justice She saw no contradiction in being a woman among men A lay person among clergy or a black american among whites Regardless of those differences which she considered superficial but understood as wholly consequential She'd never hesitated to dig in and get to work She found ways to bring people from these various groups and identities together to talk to listen to argue But most importantly to act on behalf of justice Anna arnold hedgeman's legacies are numerous Her work in the national council of churches and more specifically in the commission on religion and race Reminds us of a time when the nation's major religions focused their attention on racial reconciliation and racial justice Through her work with Protestant religious leaders in the national council of churches As well as with catholic and jewish leaders She praised people in groups for their ideological support But insisted that any reconciliation Had to be prayed over and acted on She recruited the majority of white people who attended the march on washington And then immediately turned that support into advocacy on behalf of the groundbreaking civil rights act of 1964 Anna hedgeman showed remarkable foresight on some of the most pressing issues of our day Especially those around diversity and whiteness She played a role in the formation of black theology Validating black americans long and justice minded relationship to christianity And challenging those who listened to white ministers Or prayed to a white jesus or imagined god to be white To expand their consciousness in order to expand their humanity Hedgeman exhorted christian churches to recognize themselves as economic as well as spiritual institutions And to dedicate some of their vast financial resources to justice And as a founding member of the national organization for women She pushed her white feminist colleagues to keep issues of race and economics in the forefront of her activism Anna Arnold hedgeman led a deliberate purposeful life a life that gives us pause And that invites us to look within as well as without as we commit ourselves to justice in a new century She joined others in formation And she was central to the formation of struggles for racial and gender justice For solidarity For intersectionality For knowing one's history Changing one's present and demanding justice in the future. Thank you Give time for a few questions I've got a microphone. Does it work? I think so. There you go. Okay. Questions Dr. Scanlon, I have a question about the um What happened after the um march of washington of 63? I know that um a lot of as described in your book the Feminist community like uh hedgeman herself and I think i'm saying poly marie. That's her name. Okay. Yeah They gathered and had a meeting like what happened here. What was the long-term? um effective moving forward and learning from the um sexist component of the 63 march on washington That's a great question. Um as you noted after the march a group of um black women That hedgeman had been working with for a long time met to talk about This whole issue of women not being allowed to speak at the march They knew this before the march. They thought about protesting the march. They thought about Creating some kind of action in the end. They decided to participate in the march But to keep fighting for um gender justice afterwards and so they met in dc and they started um a range of groups and um responding to what they considered sexism in their organizations And there were black women in a whole range of civil rights organizations They definitely tried to gain more leadership positions But if you study any of those other organizations, you see that they um This was no easy task. Um, it's still no easy task, right? There's still plenty of um gender injustice out there So I would say the long-term Response was to continue to fight But there were there weren't any immediate successes. I'm sorry to say Hi, thank you so much for uh exploring this rather unknown chapter Of the 63 march on washington, which i'm reminded a recent book Jones's book on the march on washington is all about remembering labor issues Um, and you know the jobs injustice for getting the jobs part and because of martin luther king's speech And i'm i'm just wondering course labor two was mindless of women's position there and there are no speakers women speakers and so I was wondering though if If anna hedgman had any relationship other than with a philip brandolff with any labor leaders Yeah, she did It was a big issue for her and she was very involved through particularly through new york city politics So she had served in um mayor waggler's administration In new york and so through that she was involved in labor issues in new york that picture. Um, this is a This um image of her Um with randolph and um Malcolm x in new york that was all about hospital workers She was very much involved in that one interesting thing about this photograph That will jones actually introduced me to this photograph He had discovered it and um often this photograph has been reproduced with Hedgeman cut out on the right hand side And so some of you actually may have seen this photograph Without hedgman in it, uh, which in of itself is a Pretty telling I think Yeah, but yes labor issues were near and dear to her from her earliest days During the great depression. She worked at the harlem y w c a and so she was very much involved in labor issues for black women Then she was at the brooklyn y w c a and she was an act she would Quit her jobs and go out to the street and organize and then take another job and then quit She and her husband her husband merit hedgman was um a musician a singer a tenor and he You know, there was a there was an attitude of white americans during this time in new york city Where they would go slumming in harlem you might be familiar with that term And so they would go and partake of cultural life in harlem and then go back home to whatever their white communities were And um one of the places they liked to go was the cotton club which catered to an all white audience and merit hedgman used to sing at the cotton club and um You know, it would be enormously frustrating for him as you can imagine because in part what happened there Was that all of these white americans sort of felt that these black americans were naturally gifted at music and Not that they worked enormously hard every day right to home their craft and to go to work and make money But somehow that they were doing something that came naturally to them So one night he came home from the cotton club and hedgman had been working In the ywca and they were both enormously frustrated with their work and it was during the great depression and uh They said what are we going to do? You know, we we don't know if we can keep going like this and uh So they signed what they called their declaration of independence On a piece of paper and they pinned it onto the curtain in their apartment And he went and he quit his job at the cotton club And she quit her job at the ywca and they found ways to you know, rub two nickels together for many many years But they felt that they lived in accordance with their principles But labor was really important to her all along. In fact, it's what made her kind of become a democrat Um was Her relationship to labor issues I have a question and a microphone Uh, so you describe her in the book as a self-taught historian Could you say something about that? Why that was so vital to her? Why that absorbed an enormous amount of energy and even this uh, yeah She so she was one of the early practitioners of black history. She lived in Harlem She felt that children white children and black children were being damaged by having this incredibly Incomplete sense of american history, right? So she started she did a lot of she visited tons and tons of elementary schools They're all these great letters from children Written to her telling her black kids in new york city telling her about how much You know, she meant to them and how much her words meant to them Um, and she empowered them, you know during world war two um Blood was segregated So The red cross would take in blood or whatever these organizations were that would take in blood But they would take black blood and they would only give it to black soldiers and white blood to white soldiers And they believed that there was some kind of difference in blood, which is wholly unscientific but Obviously really racist So hedgeman and this other woman this white woman they worked together in new york And they got these school kids all of these elementary school kids to do these experiments on blood and so um All the kids did these experiments and they discovered that there's no difference right that blood is blood And so they had all these kids they made posters They made these really cool posters one was Of a white hand a white soldier and a black soldier and their hands came together and so they did these really Wonderful things and then they took all these kids and they went to the leadership of the red cross and they said You know, we need to educate you because you believe that there's a difference in Blood and there's no difference in blood still took years before they changed the policy But that was part of her black history work She did a lot in schools and then she did a lot in colleges She taught at Manhattanville college. She taught at princeton As lecturer she taught in a lot of places. She did a lot of consulting too to help people learn how to do Black history it was very important to her Yeah, we have a last question Volunteer for the last question. Thank you So i'm wondering and what other ways did the civil rights movement suffer due to the lack of recognition and involvement that they allowed to women Yeah, so it's sort of hard to say what didn't happen right because we know what did happen But certainly, you know black women played such central roles in churches That's one area where we know that their leadership Could have been much more profound if they had had the same kinds of opportunities I guess another way I would say and it involves hedgeman, but also you could think about rosa parks in this same way Um where black women only got so far in leadership positions And what that meant was that they didn't earn as much money. They didn't have the same kind of financial security They didn't have job security so We don't know what they could have done if they had that right But rosa parks, you know lived the latter years of her life very poor and Basically ignored because why will she never had a job within the civil rights movement that would have allowed her a pension, right? or anna art old hedgeman wasn't a Religious leader So she didn't have a church that took care of her even though she worked for the national council of churches and these other bodies for so long so one of the ironies in relation to Hedgeman's life and her husband's life is they fought for decades Not so much her husband. He wasn't particularly political, but occasionally he was but hedgeman For the rights of african-americans in new york city to have decent housing housing Jobs these were critically important things to her and at one point she and her husband had to seek City support for housing for themselves because they couldn't afford to stay in their apartment So, you know, that's one cost certainly is Without job security They couldn't do as much as they might have done and that was true of I would say many black women leaders Thank you really so much for coming out tonight. I appreciate it You