The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of the Civil Rights Movement

Introduction

The first women's rights convention was held in 1848 in Seneca Falls. Do you think that I ever learned that when I was in high school studying history? No. However, during my high school years, I was beginning to pay attention to what women were and were not allowed to do. For instance, I remember when, in 1966, the National Organization for Women (NOW) was established as a result of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)'s failing to take effective action concerning employment discrimination complaints. Twenty-eight brave, courageous, and bold women founded NOW as a civil rights organization. I was all over this. I graduated from high school in 1968 and entered college in the fall that same year. In September, every year before 1968, I watched the Miss America Pageant. It was a family tradition; we would actually keep our own score cards rating all the beautiful girls as they paraded across the stage in their swimsuits and evening gowns, trying to guess who would be in the top ten finalists and, of course, who would be crowned Miss America. But after 1968, women in New York protested the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City. The Miss America Pageant was forever changed for me. I began to question my place in the world as a woman. The women's movement was gaining strength and I was ready and eager to join them and to speak out against legal and cultural inequalities. I thought I was so liberal and such a new thinker. Boy, was I wrong!! I was a Johnny-come-lately to the scene. What did I really know about the early pioneers for women's rights and the struggle for equal rights and the vote or the impact their struggles had on my life in 1968? Not very much. I knew that women received the right to vote in 1920 and that the vote came to us by way of the 19^th amendment, but that is about all I was taught about the women's movement. Oh, yes, I knew it was difficult and that suffragettes marched and handed out flyers, but studying the women's movement was absent from my high school experience, and often high school students today unknowingly have the same lack of information in their U.S. History course.

Reva Siegel¹ refers to this time in history as a lost chapter. I have come to realize that the constitutional history of the women's rights movement was a lost chapter not only for me but also for most of America. I want my students to know that even today, while there is little reference made to the struggle leading to the ratification of the 19^th Amendment, and women clearly have the right to vote, there remain issues around equality for women. I want my students to understand the consequences of perseverance in the face of adversity or oppression. I want them to understand what it means to have the courage of your convictions. It is by studying the past that we can clarify and better understand issues that face us today. Issues facing women today are some of the same issues that faced women in the 19^th century; issues such as violence, job discrimination, pay difference, right to privacy, and connections to family. Thus, this unit will provide direction for teachers as they help their students to understand the women's movement from the 1840s to the 1920s and how this history impacts women today.