history often forgets the unsung heroes of the movement: women. Civil rights leaders like Dorothy Height, Anna Arnold Hedgeman, Myrlie Evers, Daisy Bates, Diane Nash, and Gloria Richardson contributed significantly to the planning and execution of the March — and yet their names rarely grace history textbooks in school. Their stories go untold because history has largely avoided discussing gender biases in the civil rights movement.
She is known primarily as a deafblind wunderkind who learned to read, speak, and understand the English language. But there’s much more to Hellen Keller’s story. She was a socialist, a card-carrying union member, an outspoken early supporter of the NAACP, one of the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union, a suffragist, and encouraged the legalization of birth control. But she also promoted some eugenicist ideas in the early 20th century.