The Citizenship Education Program and Black Women's Political Culture
Deanna M Gillespie
University Press of Florida
Gillespie traces the history of the Citizenship Education Program (CEP), a grassroots initiative that taught people to read and write in preparation for literacy tests required for voter registration - a profoundly powerful objective in the Jim Crow South. Drawing on teachers' reports and correspondence, oral history interviews, and papers from a variety of civil rights organizations, Gillespie follows the growth of the CEP from its beginnings in the South Carolina Sea Islands to Southeastern Georgia, the Mississippi Delta, and Alabama's Black Belt. This book retells the story of the civil rights movement from the vantage point of activists who have often been overlooked and makeshift classrooms where local people discussed, organized, and demanded change.