The Committee for Equal Justice

The Committee for Equal Justice (also known as the Committee for Equal Justice for the Rights of Mrs. Recy Taylor) was an organization founded with the goal of assisting black women reclaim their bodies against sexual violence and interracial rape.[1] Recy Taylor and Rosa Parks founded the committee in 1944 after six white men kidnapped and raped Taylor, an African-American woman, as she left her Abbeville, Alabama church.[2] Taylor's case garnered heavy media coverage. With this attention came national support, which led to what the Chicago Defender called the "strongest campaign for equal justice to be seen in a decade."[3] Committee members formed eighteen chapters [4] across the United States, and included such figures as WEB DuBois, Mary Church Terrell, Oscar Hammerstein II, John Sengstacke and Langston Hughes, among others.[5]

  1. ^ Danielle L. McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (New York: Vintage Books, 2011) 23.
  2. ^ Jeanne Theoharis, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (Boston: Beacon Press, 2013) 23.
  3. ^ McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street, 22.
  4. ^ McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street, 26.
  5. ^ McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street, 31.