Septima Clark's Rhetorical and Ethnic Legacy

Ella Baker is known as the godmother of the civil rights movement and the midwife of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, RosaParks is known as the mother of the civil rights movement, and Septima Poinsette Clark is regarded as the queen of the civil rights movement. These three women, along with hundreds of other women, were major leaders, organizers, and strategists who helped to mold and shape the direction that the movement would take.... [They] used their knowledge and experience to challenge the racist and sexist traditions that circumscribe their lives (Crawford, 1988, p. 24). African American women involved in the civil rights movement rejected the notions of a helpless and hopeless frame (Bryan, 1988, p. 60). They had strong convictions, self-confidence . .. [and] thought themselves capable of doing anything men could do, including facing physical danger (Giddings, 1984, p. 278). Clark (1962) wrote that before a person goes into work of this kind [activism] he may have to pay for the freedom he is trying to establish for all (pp. 11-12). And this is what she and other women in the movement did. Being involved in the civil rights movement caused many women to interrupt their careers or education and/or to damage