Flonzie Brown Wright Explained

Flonzie Brown Wright
Other Names:Flonzie Brown Goodloe,
Flonzie Brown-Goodloe,
Flonzie Brown-Wright
Birth Name:Flonzie Brown
Birth Date:12 August 1942
Birth Place:Farmhaven, Madison County, Mississippi, U.S.
Education:Tougaloo College
Occupation:Civil rights activist, voting rights activist, educator, author
Children:3

Flonzie Brown-Wright (also known as Flonzie Brown-Goodloe; born 1942)[1] is an American civil rights activist, voting rights activist, educator, and author.[2] [3] In 1968, she was elected Election Commissioner in Canton, becoming the first Black woman elected to a public office in Mississippi since the Reconstruction era.[4] She worked with Martin Luther King Jr.[5]

Early life and education

Flonzie Brown was born on August 12, 1942, in Farmhaven, Madison County, Mississippi, into an African American family, and was raised in Canton, Mississippi.[6] [7] Her maternal side of the family had grown-up educated and multi-cultural; and her paternal side of the family had been enslaved. When she was age 12 in 1954, two of her cousins (age 15 and age 17) were visiting her in Canton from Chicago and they were brutally murdered and dismembered.[8]

Brown-Wright attended Holy Child Jesus School, where she met her classmate Thea Bowman; and she attended Canton public schools.[9] Brown-Wright attended Tougaloo College.

Career

She married a childhood friend and they moved to California, and had three children, but by 1962 she divorced. Brown-Wright was inspired to return her family to Mississippi after seeing the 1961 Freedom Rides on television. She took a job as a waitress in Biloxi, which is where she met civil rights leaders and attorneys Jack H. Young, R. Jess Brown, and Carsie Hall.[10]

After the murder of Medgar Evers in 1963, she became committed to work in the civil rights movement initially focused on voting rights. She also became the Mississippi NAACP Field Secretary in 1963. When Brown-Wright went to register to vote, her voting application was rejected for not knowing the term "habeas corpus"; so she took a month to study the United States constitution and was able to pass. It was common during the 1960s for the Election Commissioner to ask random questions, in order to pass the voter registration test.[11]

During the civil rights movement in the 1960s, she helped register thousands of voters in the state of Mississippi. In 1968, she was elected as the Election Commissioner in Canton, where she was tasked with monitoring elections, training poll workers, supervising registrars, and holding educational workshops for voters.[12] She sued the Elections Board for discrimination against candidates and poll workers.

In 1966, after the March Against Fear where James Meredith was shot, Martin Luther King Jr. brought three thousand protestors to Canton and asked for Brown-Wright's help with finding them accommodations.

At a conference in Chicago, she met Mamie Till, the mother of lynching victim Emmett Till. Between 1969 and 1973, Brown Wright served as vice president of the Institute of Politics at Millsaps College. She worked for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 1974 to 1989. She also went on national tours to give lectures and workshops on voting rights,[13] and served as president of the non-profit organization Women for Progress in Mississippi.[14]

She published a memoir, Looking Back to Move Ahead: An Experience of History and Hope (1st ed. 1996).[15] Her life story was included in the documentary film, Standing on My Sisters' Shoulders (1997) by Laura J. Lipson.[16]

In 2018, she was honored by the United States House of Representatives.[17]

Publications

Notes and References

  1. Book: Ownby, Ted . https://books.google.com/books?id=HWolDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA147 . The Mississippi Encyclopedia . Wilson . Charles Reagan . Abadie . Ann J. . Lindsey . Odie . Jr . James G. Thomas . 2017-05-25 . Univ. Press of Mississippi . 978-1-4968-1159-2 . 147 . en . Brown-Wright, Flozie (Goodloe) b. 1942, activist.
  2. Book: Mallegg, Kristin B. . Who's Who Among African Americans . 2008 . Gale / Cengage Learning . 978-1-4144-0020-4 . 161 . en.
  3. Web site: Fowler . Sarah . 'We gave so much': Reflections on Mississippi Civil Rights Museum . 2022-10-21 . The Clarion-Ledger . en-US.
  4. Web site: February 1, 2021 . Black history: Activist Flonzie Brown-Wright . 2022-10-21 . 13 WTHR NBC . en-US.
  5. Web site: Johnson . Jada . February 11, 2020 . Flonzie Brown Wright provides perspective . 2022-10-21 . The Washburn Review.
  6. Web site: December 13, 2017 . Flonzie Brown Wright's Biography . 2022-10-21 . The HistoryMakers . en.
  7. Web site: Privett . Symphonie . February 6, 2019 . Women in Civil Rights: Flonzie Brown Wright . 2022-10-21 . WLOX13 (Gray Media Group, Inc.) . WLBT . en.
  8. Web site: Pickens . Erin . 2022-02-08 . 'You can't carry hate. You can't carry anger. It will destroy you,' civil rights leader says . 2022-10-21 . WAPT . en.
  9. Book: Feister, Charlene Smith and John . Thea's Song: The Life of Thea Bowman . 2009 . Orbis Books . 978-1-60833-045-4 . en. 33.
  10. Web site: Brown, R. Jess, Carsie A. Hall, and Jack H. Young, Sr. . 2022-10-21 . Mississippi Encyclopedia . en-US.
  11. News: For Many Black Voters, Trump's 'What Do You Have To Lose?' Plea Isn't Enough . en . NPR.org . 2022-10-21.
  12. News: Workshop Disruption in Madison is Charged . . Atlanta, Georgia . AP . 6 . 1971-10-15 . 2022-10-21 . Newspapers.com.
  13. Web site: 2015-02-24 . Civil Rights Leader Slated to Speak in Columbus Tuesday . 2022-10-21 . WCBI TV . en-US.
  14. News: Women for Progress . . 75 . 1985-11-07 . 2022-10-21 . Newspapers.com.
  15. Web site: Brown-Wright, Flonzie (Goodloe) . 2022-10-21 . Mississippi Encyclopedia . en-US.
  16. Web site: August 17, 2020 . 'Standing On My Sisters' Shoulders' Civil Rights Documentary Will Be Presented Free By Pasadena Senior Center Online . 2022-10-21 . Pasadena Now . en-US.
  17. Web site: March 28, 2018 . Civil Rights Activist Flonzie Brown-Wright honored by House of Representatives . 2022-10-21 . WJTV . en-US.