Diane Nash Civil Rights Movement

When someone thinks of the Civil Rights movement they picture Martin Luther King Junior giving his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Someone might also think of Malcolm X and sit-ins held by those a part of the movement. Ask someone if they can name three female leaders of the Civil Rights movement and they might mumble out a single name, Rosa Parks. Looking through manuscripts, thesis’s, and reports there’s a common reoccurrence of male lead groups being the center of all the attention. Behind every man is a great woman proves true during the Civil Rights movement as well. These women who helped shape American history are some of the strongest that have ever been, unfortunately they are also some of the most forgotten. During the Civil Rights

Nash’s journey to become a part of the Civil Rights Movement began when she moved from her home in Chicago to Nashville to attend Fisk University (Standley 190). Moving to the south opened Nash’s eyes to the continued segregation that she had not previously witnessed so boldly before. This shock prompted Nash to volunteer for the SNCC. Nash was involved in protest efforts and was not just a bystander. Nash chaired the central committee of the sit-in movement in Nashville and assembled a second group of freedom riders to reach the destination in New Orleans when the first group was prohibited from doing so (Standley 190). Nash took multiple important roles with the movement, but when she wrote an article called “The Men Behind Martin Luther King” which profiled the male staff members of the SCLC she seemed to contradict the importance of hers and other females role within the Civil Rights Movement (Standley 190). Diane Nash wrote the women apart of the SCLC as only peripheral figures and indirectly made them secondary status within the group. This is evident with Nash’s notes on the staff meeting. Though female members were present she only noted on what the men said seeming to give their opinion more weight than the females. Nash wrote that men were the ones who should be leading the movement, yet she herself had helped start many movements. This article may seem a bit hypocritical, but Nash was after the common goal of the group. If that meant promoting a male lead to show Whites that the movement was stable and organized then that was what she was going to write. Nash shared the same idea with Robinson that finding representation in politics was the key to ending