8/14/2023 0 Comments Eleanor holmes norton![]() I believed in American justice enough to believe that nonviolent civil disobedience would not ruin my life” (The Voices of Civil Rights, 2004). But we thought no one was going to punish us for having arrest records sitting in against injustice. When asked if she was afraid while protesting, Holmes stated: “I worried a little about getting a record, because I was going to be a lawyer and that could be held against a lawyer. She was also mentored by Fannie Lou Hamer that summer and bailed a badly beaten Hamer out of jail. Her first day in the Delta would be marked in history, as she spent most of it with fellow activist Medgar Evers the day he was assassinated (Bash, 2019). During the summer of 1963, Holmes spent her summer in the Mississippi Delta participating in Mississippi Freedom Summer with fellow SNCC members. Holmes continued participating in Civil Rights organizing. in Law, which was the most common law degree during the time. While attending Yale to earn her master’s in American Studies and LL.B. Afterward, she went on to attend graduate school at Yale University. in 1960, she organized with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and had been arrested for organizing and participating in sit-ins in DC, Maryland, and Ohio. In 1955, Holmes began attending Antioch College in Ohio (The Voices of Civil Rights, 2004). Throughout her years of collegiate and graduate study, Holmes became actively involved in growing Civil Rights organizing. Holmes (later Norton) in the 1955 Dunbar High School yearbook, May 1955 Times were rapidly changing as Norton was coming of age, as illustrated by her experiences growing up in segregated D.C.Įleanor K. I am sitting in Dunbar High School and the kind of buzzer that comes on where the principal signals as he often did that there was an announcement coming He announced that the Supreme Court of the United States had just found the schools where we are sitting, like Dunbar High School, to be unconstitutional.” - Holmes Norton She was in the last class of students segregated by race, and was quoted stating: “May 17, 1954. ![]() ![]() In one interview with CNN, Holmes recalled the day that the announcement was made that segregated schools were found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (Bash, 2019). Formerly known as the M Street High School, Dunbar is also renowned for its long history of distinguished alumni, many of whom went on to attend and graduate from elite colleges when few African Americans went on to earn degrees. She attended Paul Laurence Dunbar High School from 1952 to 1956. (Bash, 2019) In addition to these conversations, her experiences growing up in segregated DC were formative to her career trajectory as a civil and women’s rights activist (The Voices of Civil Rights, 2004). While Holmes was a child, her parents would frequently have conversations with her about segregation and the ongoing Civil Rights Movement. Her mother was a teacher, and her father was a civil servant. Her decades-long career as a Black feminist lawyer, civil servant, and educator has and continues to be in service of African Americans, women, DC residents, and other historically disenfranchised people.Įleanor Katherine Holmes Norton was born in Washington, DC on Jto Vela (nee Lynch) and Coleman Holmes. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and continues to fight for DC statehood in her third decade as a congresswoman. Eleanor Holmes Norton was the first woman appointed to chair the U.S.
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