Changemakers discuss Dallas and the civil rights movement

By Norma Adams-Wade Texas Metro News Correspondent Can we talk? To borrow from a classic song lyric, there was “a whole lot of talking going on” during Black History Month 2023. For their part, three local changemakers shared important memories during a February 11 “Community Conversation” at the African American Museum at Fair Park. The African American Museum and the 6th Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza that houses artifacts about the 1963 Pres. John F. Kennedy assassination co-sponsored the event. Former Dallas deputy Mayor Pro-Tem Diane Ragsdale, community organizer Marilyn Clark, and arts and culture administrator Vicki Meek said much of the civil rights movement has been forgotten, but still is relevant today and can help guide future changemakers. Meek led an audience Question and Answer session after Ragsdale and Clark spoke. Others at the program included a group of young change makers headed by younger activist Amber Sims. “Where are we falling short?” Meek asked concerning veteran activists. “We did not document our work,” Ragsdale lamented concerning a perceived gap between veteran and current community activists. “But we’re going to do it.” “The hard work of movement building was done by ordinary people,” Clark said, adding that the public too often believes the erroneous claim that there was no civil rights movement in Dallas. The women spoke on the topic of Black Women in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement in Dallas. But they also recalled movement efforts of men and women who strove to make a difference.

MARILYN CLARK

Clark described the late Ruth Jefferson today are little-known yet a powerful force. Jefferson was a bold, outspoken women who fought to improve the lives of mothers who received government aid to support their children. Jefferson was a key player in the National Welfare Rights Organization. (NWRO) She led protests against what the mothers said was discrimination treatment of African-American welfare mothers. One example was that no fathers or adult males could live in the residence of women who receive government aid. The women said this practice contributed to the “absent father” syndrome in Black homes. The mothers also claimed various other discriminatory practices by case-workers who regularly visited the women’s homes to investigate the conditions there. Protests activities involved a three-night sit-in at the federal welfare office in downtown Dallas. It is important to share that these activities took place, Clark asserted. “Remembering is a form of resistance,” Clark said. During the question and answer segment, Clark said today’s music often fights against progress of the people. She said today’s music is different from ‘60s, ‘70s’ and ‘80s when the music was more revolutionary and moved civil rights efforts forward.

DIANE RAGSDALE

Ragsdale spoke of growing up in the Dallas civil rights movement She said she was mentored by civil rights heroes and heroines, including Juanita Craft, Albert Lipscomb, Elsie Faye Heggins, and Kathlyn Gilliam. She chronicled a select few of Dallas-chapter civil rights groups and their achievements here: including SCLC that sponsored Operation Bread Basket that fed under-privileged persons, NAACP and its Youth Council of which she was a youth member, SNCC, Black Women’s United Front, People United for Justice for prisoners, South Dallas Information Center, and the Frederick Douglass Voting Council, Ragsdale said Black women played key roles in local and national movements. Men usually were out front, but the women staffed the headquarters. Some history books say this model was true even during the time of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Ragsdale mentioned two nationally prominent Black women in the movement — Angela Davis from Birmingham and Erika Huggins with the West Coast Black panther Party. Huggins and co-author Stephen Shames co-wrote the book Comrade Sisters: Women of the Black Panther Party. “Without Black women, there would not have been a civil rights movement,” Ragsdale stated. “Whatever we do has to be institutionalized…. and the movement has to be staffed.” Trying to work within existing political systems can be futile, she said: “We have to realize that we cannot work on a foundation that is rotten.””

VICKI MEEK

Meek spoke of her own involvement in the movement : “I was on the picket line at age five,” said Meek who was born in Philadelphia and moved to Dallas as an adult. Meek mentioned that local civil rights icon Ernie McMillian, who has worked with the three women, is set to soon release his biography.