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Civil rights activist speaks to SCSU
 Media Credit: Blair Schlichte/Staff Photographer
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"You can't talk about the Civil Rights Movement and leave out the women," Judy Richardson, educator, activist and Award-winning filmmaker, said to her audience Monday afternoon in "Will the Circle be Unbroken: Lessons of the Civil Rights Movement."
Richardson, who has claims to numerous articles and films, spoke about the Civil Rights Movement, its relevance today and the importance of black women in its evolution.
Richardson spoke as part of Women's History Month. The series associate producer of the six-time Emmy winner and Academy Award nominated film "Eyes on the Prize," Richardson focuses primarily on the Civil Rights Movement.
"All of us did the Movement, not just Dr. King," Richardson said. "The values that drove the leaderships through Dr. King and the lessons are a product of two things: the events of the organizations and the types of people who were part of it."
Richardson showed the connections between Rosa Parks, the women involved with sit-ins, the bus boycotts and other activities in efforts for the Civil Rights Movement.
"What she learned in her work are lessons we should utilize in efforts for civil rights and justice," said Jane Olsen, Women's Center director.
Richardson told how Parks had been arrested prior to the story everyone knows today. When she was arrested on Thursday, Dec. 1, 1955, the women who were the backbone to "the Movement" made thousands of leaflets telling people what happened. That Sunday, the preachers in the black houses of worship were preaching the word that a boycott should happen. That Monday the effort of countless women resulted in the beginning of the boycott.
"These women not only did it for themselves, walking 7-8 miles a day," Richardson said, "but for the people who would never know them, for better days."
During the next 381 days of the strike, the bus only transferred 7,000-8,000 people a day. All this, Richardson pointed out, because women got together to make "the Movement" happen.
"The sit-ins did not know how big King was going to be," Richardson said. "So they did it for themselves."
Richardson has a rich history in civil rights. A Tarrytown, N.Y. native, she participated in activist organizations in college. A staff member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s, Richardson was also the office manager for the first campaign of Julian Bond for the Georgia House of Representatives. For five years Richardson has also been a busy compiling and editing an anthology of SNCC women's writings, "Freedom Plow," with a group of fellow SNCC women. The collection contains stories of the civil rights activism of over 50 women in the south during the freedom movement in the early 1960s.
During the 1970s, Richardson was involved with several independent projects. She directed a study about racism in Black children's books for the Howard University School of Education.
In 1974 she was named the director of the Black Student Fund, a scholarship agency for black students who attend independent schools in the Washington, D.C. area.
By 1982, Richardson began her work with the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice in New York.
In 1994 Richardson co-produced Blackside's two-and-a-half hour documentary "Malcolm X: Make it Plain." The film originally aired on PBS "The American Experience" and won an Emmy and a Peabody Award. Richardson was also a producer of Blackside's pilot for "Hopes on the Horizon." For her work she received an Image Award for Vision and Excellence from Women in Film & Video/New England.
Richardson only speaks during the months of February and March for Black History Month and Women's History Month, respectively, and she hopes that her audiences walk away having learned about the Civil Rights Movement.
"All of us did the Movement," she said. "Not just Dr. King. Regular people started it, sustained it."
She said that this information is important, "because if we don't know that, we won't know that we can do it again.
"Once you acknowledge the grassroots movements, all people can be activists, not just leaders, that becomes dangerous to the powers that be," Richardson said.
"Her core values are so important," Olsen said. "What she knows about African Americans not sitting at lunch counters, that was 40 years ago and students still can't fathom that."
Richardson hopes the women who listen also understand their importance to social causes.
"Women were the absolute foundation of the movement," she said. "It's to be historical, a valid, you can't talk about civil rights and leave out the women."
Nissa Billmyer can be reached at: [email protected]
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