Beautiful Movement: Inspiration for the Everyday Changemaker
Individually, we are a drop. Together, we are an ocean.
-Ryunosuke Satoro
A Continuing Legacy
Every organization that works with racial justice bumps against some of the same opposition that plagued early Civil Rights leaders.
Lack of resources, misinformation, funding inconsistency, and the ever-frustrating balance of not seeming too “extreme” while also being realistic with the public about the severity of discrimination.
In 2018, Mission Capital reworked its mission to focus on racial equity in the nonprofit field. We are not the first organization to do so, and many of our policies and conversations are atoms in the river of civil rights work that has been done for the past two hundred and fifty years. It is not a new journey, but it remains a difficult one. A worthwhile one.
Of course, our minds often sway to Martin Luther King Jr, as a source of hope and inspiration.
However, many people aren’t aware of the dozens of people close to Dr. King that made not only his work possible, but expanded on the honorable legacy of the Civil Rights Movement.
Without them, we would not be here – integrated schools, equal-marriage laws, something about immigration – and life would look much drearier.
So look no further for your burst of inspiration, because today isn’t only about where we are, but the people who led us here, and the people (like you!) who will lead us even further!
Kiyoshi Kuromiya
If you want to acknowledge the tremendous power of young minds, you need to look no further than Kiyoshi Kuromiya. While his family was interned at Heart Mountain, Wyoming, a Japanese internment camp, he was born on May 9, 1943.
By the end of his life, he would participate in the Civil Rights Movement, become a member of ACT UP, and found the Critical Path Project.
Kuromiya was an activist in his own right.
He was present at the Walk on Selma, where he was brutally beaten and hospitalized by state troopers. He also led a group of high school students in a march to the state capitol building in Montgomery on March 13 and protested the use of Napalm in Vietnam at the library steps of Pennsylvania State University.
“I was in the South during the spring and summer of 1965. After Revered James Reeb was killed, we marched and I was clubbed down and hospitalized. When you get treated this way, you suddenly know what it is like to be black in Mississippi or a peasant in Vietnam. ”
However, many people aren’t aware of how he was also a personal assistant to Dr. King and his family. He would even help to care for King’s children the week of his funeral.
While Dr. King traveled the country delivering speeches and organizing peaceful protests, people like Kuromiya continued his work in the south.
Without Kuromiya, Dr. King’s words might have died the moment he left Atlanta, and certainly would not have lived on past his murder.
Kuromiya went on to continue Dr. King’s legacy after his death. A proud Gay man, he advocated for free speech on the web, and the plight of HIV/AIDS and LGTBQ+ citizens until his early death at the age of fifty-seven.
Talk about having friends in great places!
Ella Baker
Geniuses worked all around Dr. King, and one woman who was instrumental for creating and managing the organization that would become King’s platform for change was Ella Baker.
Born August 13, 1903, in Norfolk, Virginia, she co-founded In Friendship in 1955, which helped raise the funds necessary to run the Civil Rights Movement.
“The major job was getting people to understand that they had something within their power that they could use, and it could only be used if they understood what was happening and how group action could counter violence…”
In 1957, Baker relocated to Atlanta, Georgia. It was there that she would help organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
While Dr. King was the organization’s main figurehead, Baker remained the mind and voice responsible for setting the group’s agenda and pinpointing the issues of focus.
Anyone who has ever run an organization knows that the most important work is done behind closed doors- establishing a rhythm of organization and efficiency.
That work was only possible because of Ella Baker. Without her, SCLC would not have been able to sustain the resources or intellect possible to allow Dr. King to spread his message of peace.
Not to mention, for two and a half years, in an era before social media, Baker utilized her networks, leadership skills, and emotional intelligence to plan events, identify and establish protests and campaigns, and select and train various other Civil Rights leaders.
One of those individuals is another household name: Rosa Parks.
Mrs. Theresa Burroughs
There is a phrase from a resistance song that rang out during the South African Women's March of 1956: you strike the woman; you strike the rock.
If ever there was a rock that could not be broken, it was Mrs. Theresa Burroughs.
Born on August 14, 1928, in Moundville, AL, she would go on to win more than twenty awards, including The State of Alabama Certificate of Appreciation 1985, A Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2016 Call to Conscience Award.
Not to mention that President Barack Obama created a Legacy Book dedicated to Mrs. Burroughs and Congresswoman Terri Sewell presented a Congressional Report in Honor of Mrs. Burroughs.
“When I was a child, I would see white people getting dressed and going on Tuesdays. And I would wonder where are they going? They said they were going to vote. ... And I said, ‘Why can’t we vote?’ ”
Along with hundreds of other activists, Burroughs endured arrest and violence from state troopers as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in peaceful protest.
She would go on to become a strong advocate for voting rights in Alabama and a strong friend to the King family.
To commemorate not only her friend Dr. King but the legacy of Civil Rights protestors everywhere, Mrs. Burroughs established a museum from the house where, on the night of March 21, 1968, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sought refuge from the Ku Klux Klan. Without that house and the support of the community, Dr. King’s life may have ended much earlier.
Alongside Kuromiya, Burroughs is well-known for continuing the fight for civil rights by immortalizing the information in the Safe House Black History Museum, which documents the local struggle for equality.
Keep Going
Mission Capital recognizes that the Civil Rights Movement hasn’t ended, just changed batons. For those who are now holding one such baton, Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Don’t forget to thank the trailblazers who operate behind the scenes because they make a movement flow.
Don’t forget that the heroes named in this blog would be proud of your accomplishments and lessons.
Don’t forget that we, too, gain inspiration from you every day.
Most of all, don’t forget Dr. King, because wherever he is now, he is bragging about you!