Mildred Emery in one of her many church hats, circa 1970s
March is is Women’s History Month. Celebrate all the wonderful women in your life, and those who made history. There are so many untold stories of courage and resilience that it’s hard to choose which ones to tell. So enjoy this fantastic Women’s History online exhibit that to me is like a huge treasure chest. If you’re a history geek like me, you’ll have hours of enjoyment. Read about Chinese American women, female spies throughout history and more.
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Louisiana Women’s History snippets
In 1953 Martha White boarded a city bus in Baton Rouge, LA after a long hard day. She sat down in the first empty seat to take a load off her tried feet. There was just one big problem, she sat down in the “Whites Only” section. The outraged white bus driver ordered her to get up. She did, but then she got mad and sat down again. The police were called, and Martha was headed to jail. Rev. T. J. Jemison, a local and influential Black baptist minister, intervened and prevented her from serving time in jail. Together with other brave men and women, Rev. Jemison led the first successful bus boycott to protest segregation on public transportation. Blacks banded together and provided each other with rides to work. The buses in Baton Rouge were nearly empty for eight days. Businesses were hard hit. The city council and bus company executives cried, “Uncle!” A compromise was negotiated. The first two seats would still be for whites only, and the last two rows on each bus would be for Blacks only. Anyone could sit anywhere else on Baton Rouge city buses. The Baton Rouge Bus Boycott was two and a half years BEFORE Rosa Parks took her seat and kicked off the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In fact, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a delegation from Montgomery, AL came to Baton Rouge to learn from Rev. Jemison and the leaders of the Baton Rouge Bus Boycott. Rosa Parks became the famous symbol of resistance to segregation, but Martha White’s name is still rarely mentioned.
Clementine Hunter lived a simple life in a wood cabin on Melrose Plantation in the Cane River region of Louisiana. She painting pictures of life that she was familiar with in rural Louisiana, and of things she liked such a flowers. The illiterate child of former slaves on the cotton plantation, Mrs. Hunter gave away her paintings as gifts, or sold them for only a few dollars. To me the untold story is how others became rich and famous from her work, yet never shared even a fraction of this wealth with her or her family. Miss Clementine didn’t care about fame, and when she was “discovered” in the 1950s I’m sure she had no idea what her art could have done to provide for future generations of her family. I wonder if her descendants own any of her art. I’m told that her white benefactors bought most of it for very modest sums from Miss Clementine, and therefore became the owners of some of the most collectible and valuable art in America.
Marie Laveau is famously known as the Louisiana Queen of Voodoo. What is less well known are these surprising facts about her. Madame Paris (from the name of her first husband) fought against slavery and injustice using her brains and her reputation as a voodoo priestess. Public executions were stopped in Louisiana because of Marie. She tried to prevent the hanging of a man whom she felt was being unjustly punished, but the judge and prosecutor forged ahead. The man was sentenced to hang. Marie showed up on the day of his execution, and the sky turned dark. Lightening flashed, fierce winds blew and the hangman’s rope broke. The man was set free. City and state officials ended public executions from that day forward.
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Collect photos of the powerful women who feature in the history of your family and make a scrap book. Give honor where honor is due. Plus you’ll have a lot of fun discovering so much about them and maybe even yourself.
Dorothy going to the prom, circa 1948
