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Building bridges of understanding
Descriptive
TitleInfo
Title
Building bridges of understanding
SubTitle
the activism of Wednesdays in Mississippi
Name
(type = personal)
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(type = family)
Tuuri
NamePart
(type = given)
Rebecca A.
NamePart
(type = date)
1980-
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Rebecca Tuuri
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(authority = RULIB)
author
Name
(type = personal)
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Hewitt
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Nancy A.
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Nancy A. Hewitt
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Advisory Committee
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chair
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(type = family)
White
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(type = given)
Deborah Gray
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Deborah Gray White
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Advisory Committee
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co-chair
Name
(type = personal)
NamePart
(type = family)
Lawson
NamePart
(type = given)
Steven F.
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Steven F. Lawson
Affiliation
Advisory Committee
Role
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(authority = RULIB)
internal member
Name
(type = personal)
NamePart
(type = family)
Dittmer
NamePart
(type = given)
John
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John Dittmer
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Advisory Committee
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
outside member
Name
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NamePart
Rutgers University
Role
RoleTerm
(authority = RULIB)
degree grantor
Name
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Graduate School - New Brunswick
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school
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Text
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theses
OriginInfo
DateCreated
(qualifier = exact)
2012
DateOther
(qualifier = exact);
(type = degree)
2012-05
CopyrightDate
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2012
Place
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(type = code)
xx
Language
LanguageTerm
(authority = ISO639-2b);
(type = code)
eng
Abstract
(type = abstract)
Wednesdays in Mississippi (WIMS) was an interracial, interfaith civil rights organization formed in 1964 to aid in the Freedom Summer voter registration project. The National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) sponsored this organization, with participants hailing from major national liberal women’s organizations such as the Young Women’s Christian Association, National Council of Jewish Women, National Council of Catholic Women, Church Women United, and the NCNW. These women sought to counteract southern whites’ negative stereotypes of civil rights workers by promoting themselves as an older generation of activists sympathetic to their cause. By wearing white gloves, pearls, and dresses, they employed gendered performances of respectability, membership in national women’s organizations, and ties to major business and political leaders to change the hearts and minds of white southern moderates resistant to integration. In that first summer, 48 WIMS members in teams of five to seven women flew to Jackson, Mississippi on Tuesday, visited a smaller Mississippi town on Wednesday, and flew back on Thursday. Teams returned in the summer of 1965 to work with Head Start initiatives. In 1966 the organization became Workshops in Mississippi and shifted its focus to supporting anti-poverty initiatives, such as a pig farm, day care centers, and low-income home ownership projects, in Mississippi. This dissertation explores the ways that middle-aged, middle class black and white women engaged in activism during the 1960s. Unlike more radical feminist and black power activists, these women sought to be unobtrusive and inoffensive in their efforts, working behind the scenes to foster social and economic justice. Their activism depended on individual transformation and on building connections between local activists and national officials and organizations. Their quiet strategy has been largely responsible for the lack of attention given them by historians. Yet they offer an important and largely overlooked form of middle class liberal activism through which women influenced local civil rights campaigns; forged ties between black and white women, North and South; and used their connections to bring federal resources to poor southern communities. Ultimately, WIMS efforts also served as a model for NCNW projects in Africa.
Subject
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Topic
History
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Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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ETD
Identifier
ETD_3997
PhysicalDescription
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electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
x, 289 p.
Note
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Ph.D.
Note
(type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note
(type = vita)
Includes vita
Note
(type = statement of responsibility)
by Rebecca A. Tuuri
Subject
Name
(authority = LC-NAF)
NamePart
(type = corporate)
Wednesdays in Mississippi--History
Subject
(authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Women civil rights workers--Mississippi
Subject
(authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Civil rights movements--United States
Identifier
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http://hdl.rutgers.edu/1782.1/rucore10001600001.ETD.000065281
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TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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rucore19991600001
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NjNbRU
Identifier
(type = doi)
doi:10.7282/T3RJ4HDJ
Genre
(authority = ExL-Esploro)
ETD doctoral
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Rights
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The author owns the copyright to this work.
RightsHolder
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Name
FamilyName
Tuuri
GivenName
Rebecca
Role
Copyright Holder
RightsEvent
Type
Permission or license
DateTime
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(point = start);
(qualifier = exact)
2012-04-16 14:21:14
AssociatedEntity
Name
Rebecca Tuuri
Role
Copyright holder
Affiliation
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
AssociatedObject
Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
RightsEvent
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2014-09-29
DateTime
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2016-05-31
Type
Embargo
Detail
Access to this PDF has been restricted at the author's request. It will be publicly available after May 31, 2016.
Copyright
Status
Copyright protected
Availability
Status
Open
Reason
Permission or license
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1124864
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