Black Women's Rural Activism: Individuals

Arkansas State University professor Cherisse Jones-Branch’s new book, Better Living by Their Own Bootstraps: Black Women’s Activism in Rural Arkansas, 1914-1965, was recently published by the University of Arkansas Press. Jones-Branch identifies some pivotal figures such as Anna P. Strong, principal of Robert R. Moton School in Marianna, and president of the Arkansas Colored Teachers Association; Leoda Berry-Gammon, a pioneering club woman who was active in the Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation Negro Division; Ethel B. Dawson, a rural religious extension agent and civil rights activist in Pine Bluff; and Annie Zachary Pike, a Phillips County farmer, activist and politician.