The Citizenship Education Program and Black Women’s Political Culture by Deanna M. Gillespie

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Citizenship Education Program and Black Women’s Political Culture by Deanna M. Gillespie Evan Faulkenbury The Citizenship Education Program and Black Women’s Political Culture. By Deanna M. Gillespie. Southern Dissent. (Gainesville and other cities: University Press of Florida, 2021. Pp. xviii, 260. $95.00, ISBN 978-0-8130-6694-3.) Across Savannah, Georgia, in 1963, Black women educated community members about taking collective action against Jim Crow. Cassie Pierce led discussions that tackled current issues, noting, “The project has . . . awakened the individuals that were asleep and caused interest and understanding” (p. 89). Another teacher, Daisy P. Jones, similarly observed in her students how the material covered “changed [a student’s] attitude toward voting and helping his people and himself instead of always kowtowing to someone” (p. 89). And another instructor, Dorothy Boles, found that after Black men and women took citizenship classes, “They walk, talk, and act like new people with determination and more courage to face the future” (p. 89). Stories like these populate historian Deanna M. Gillespie’s important book, The Citizenship Education Program and Black Women’s Political Culture. Gillespie focuses on the history of the Citizenship Education Program (CEP), which originated in 1957 and ended in 1970. The CEP, Gillespie argues, was a vital, though underappreciated, component of the Black freedom movement [End Page 184] in the South. According to Gillespie, “Everyone and no one knew about CEP classes,” because they were such a regular part of Black community life across the American South (p. 3). As a result, the CEP has remained in the background of the historiography of the movement. In CEP classes, Black men and women learned how to read, write, advocate, vote, and participate in a democracy. In so doing, the CEP “contributed to the groundswell for social justice” (p. 2). The CEP first took shape in the South Carolina Lowcountry during the late 1950s. Teachers received training at the Highlander Folk School and brought their knowledge, handbooks, and course materials to local communities. They led classes in churches, community centers, and beauty salons, with a staggering amount of local interest. Students learned how government functioned, how they could get involved in political life, what they could do to maximize their citizenship capability, and how best to use their individual and collective voices to decry the racial caste system. In 1961, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference took over from Highlander to administer the CEP. Operating throughout the South, the CEP, its teachers, and its students laid the groundwork for local civil rights movements in many communities. “This was subversive work in the Jim Crow South,” as Gillespie writes, “because reading, writing, and calculating was empowering” (p. 2). Drawing on oral histories, administrative files, attendance records, narrative CEP meeting reports, and other primary sources, Gillespie reconstructs this behind-the-scenes history of the civil rights movement. She focuses on several case studies from the states where the CEP was most active, including South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. The chapters trace the CEP’s growth, impact, and eventual decline during the late 1960s as monetary contributions dwindled and momentum shifted. But even though the program remained in the background and ended with little fanfare, Gillespie shows why we must take the CEP into account when we consider the sweep of the Black freedom struggle in the South. She quantifies the program’s impact: between 1961 and 1970, the CEP cultivated 2,349 teachers who taught 7,280 classes with an enrollment of 26,686 people. Women like Cassie Pierce, Daisy P. Jones, and Dorothy Boles were crucial to the success of not only the CEP but also the larger civil rights movement. By advertising their services, gathering around tables, teaching neighbors how to fill out forms, and informing them about their rights as citizens, these Black women sustained the movement. Gillespie’s book does their story justice. Evan Faulkenbury SUNY Cortland Copyright © 2023 The Southern Historical Association