If Your Back's Not Bent: The Role of the Citizenship Education Program in the Civil Rights Movement

Dorothy F Cotton

ISBN 10: 0743296834 / ISBN 13: 9780743296830

Editore: Atria Books, 2012

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An unsung hero of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s inner circle reveals the true story behind the Citizenship Education Program--a little-known training program for disenfranchised citizens--reflecting on its huge importance to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and explaining its indisputable relevance to our nation today. Nobody can ride your back if your back's not bent, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., famously proclaimed at the end of a Citizenship Education Program (CEP), an adult grassroots training program born of the work of the Tennessee Highlander Folk School, expanded by King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and directed by activist Dorothy Cotton. This program, called the best-kept secret of the twentieth-century's civil rights movement, was critical in preparing legions of disenfranchised citizens across the South to work with existing systems of local government to gain access to resources they were entitled to and to demonstrate peaceably against injustice, even in the face of violence and hatred. For the first time, Cotton, the only woman in King's inner circle, offers her account of this important project, which the media, focused at the time on marches and demonstrations, largely ignored. Cotton reveals the significant accomplishments and the drama of the CEP training and describes how the program transformed its participants, inspiring them, in turn, to transform their communities, and ultimately the country as a whole, into a place of greater freedom and justice for all. A timely account of fighting inequality, If Your Back's Not Bent shows how CEP was key to the civil rights movement's success and how the lessons of the program can serve our troubled democracy now.

Codice articolo CIN0743296834VG

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: If Your Back's Not Bent: The Role of the Citizenship Education Program in the Civil Rights Movement
• Editore: Atria Books
• Data di pubblicazione: 2012
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0743296834
• ISBN 13: 9780743296830
• Rilegatura: Hardback
• Condizione: Very Good

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

“Nobody can ride your back if your back’s not bent,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said at the end of a Citizenship Education Program (CEP), an adult grassroots training program directed by Dorothy Cotton. This program, called the best-kept secret of the twentieth century’s civil rights movement, was critical in preparing legions of disenfranchised people across the South to work with existing systems of local government to gain access to services and resources they were entitled to as citizens. They learned to demonstrate peacefully against injustice, even when they were met with violence and hatred. The CEP was born out of the work of the Tennessee Highlander Folk School and was fully developed and expanded by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Dr. King until that fateful day in Memphis in April 1968. Cotton was checked into the Lorraine Motel at that time as well, but she’d left to do the work of the CEP before the assassin’s bullet was fired.

If Your Back’s Not Bent recounts the accomplishments and the drama of this training that was largely ignored by the media, which had focused its attention on marches and demonstrations. This book describes who participated and how they were transformed—men and women alike—from victims to active citizens, and how they transformed their communities and ultimately the country into a place of greater freedom and justice for all. Cotton, the only woman in Dr. King’s inner circle of leadership, for the first time offers her account of the movement, correcting the historical impression that “we only marched and sang.” She shows how the CEP was key to the movement’s success, and how the lessons of the program can serve our democracy now. People, and therefore systems, can indeed change “if your back’s not bent.”

Informazioni sull'autore

Dorothy Cotton, a lifelong activist and visionary dedicated to social justice. She lives in Ithaca, New York, where the Dorothy Cotton Institute of Cornell University was recently launched as a tribute to her legacy.