Hidden Figures: Cornelia Crenshaw #BlackHERstoryMonth 1/29 (Patreon)

Hidden Figures: Cornelia Crenshaw #BlackHERstoryMonth 1/29

Cornelia Crenshaw was born March 25, 1916, in Millington, Tennessee, and moved to Memphis at the age of five- a city she would live and work in until her death in 1994. Crenshaw grew up in an unassuming family, attending Booker T. Washington High School and then Lemoyne-Owen College, a historically black university. Cornelia worked as a physician’s receptionist and in public relations for a trading stamp firm before joining the Memphis Housing Authority as a project manager, a position she would hold for 27 years. While at Memphis Housing Authority, Crenshaw became involved in Memphis activism, which was a hotbed of activity during the Civil Rights Movement. A staunch advocate of workers rights, Crenshaw fought for the right of Memphis workers to unionize and spoke on behalf of workers at city council meetings. When word of this got back to Memphis Housing Authority, Crenshaw was fired from her job. In 1965, she sued the MHA for wrongful termination, and while the lawsuit was unsuccessful, it was one of the first of its kind carried out under the new Civil Rights Bill of 1964. After her suit was unsuccessful, Crenshaw decided to become a full time activist at the age of 49. Known for wearing fashionable hats and stylish clothing, Crenshaw became a fixture at city council meetings and local protests. She organized food collections and donations for the families of workers during the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike of 1968, and Crenshaw is also credited with popularizing the slogan ‘I Am A Man,’ after she informed the workers union of her friend Robert Worsham’s poem with the title. She was the lone woman on the union’s strategy team and campaigned heavily to bring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Memphis. After King came to Memphis to support the Sanitation Workers Strike, Crenshaw was gassed marching with him. In 1969, she was arrested and jailed for disorderly conduct after protesting the increase of utility fees by refusing to pay her Memphis, Light, Gas, & Water bill. While she was released after two days, MLGW turned off her utilities and she continued to live in her home without gas or electricity for ten more years in protest. In 1979, Crenshaw was forced from her home by the city, and in 1980 she filed a lawsuit against MLGW, which subsequently began to accept partial payments on monthly bills. That same year, Crenshaw was jailed again at the age of 64 after protesting at a city council meeting; Crenshaw was protesting the deaths of two elderly Memphis citizens who’d died during a heat wave. Dr. King was known to use Crenshaw's Lincoln Continental car when he visited Memphis, and Crenshaw’s family attempted to donate it to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. Instead of accepting her personal vehicle, similar cars were placed outside, a Cadillac and a Dodge. In addition to the introduction of partial payment plan on utilities that is still utilized to this day, other efforts of Crenshaw’s include exposing use of the welfare system as a political pawn in Memphis, working with the People’s Convention to elect the first black mayor of Memphis, exposing wrongful use of taxpayers' money in Memphis, and exposing unfair corporate loopholes within housing authority. Her influence in local activism led to her nickname as the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement In Memphis." Cornelia Crenshaw died on February 19, 1994. She’d done much of her activism while living at her home at 603 Vance Avenue, and in 1997 the Vance Avenue Library was renamed Cornelia Crenshaw Library in her honor. Subsequently, the Cornelia Crenshaw Human Rights Preservation Foundation was also founded to serve the Memphis community in her name. #CorneliaCrenshaw #HiddenFigures ****************** Merchandise! MAKE SURE U GETTA SHIRT!! https://www.teepublic.com/user/sssseren Follow me on social media! Instagram: @sensei_aishitemasu Personal Tumblr: http://sensei-aishitemasu.tumblr.com Tumblr for my work: https://sssseren.tumblr.com Snapchat: sssseren GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/tc5wh7q Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/seren_sensei ****************** Did you know I wrote a book? ☺️ 'So, About That... A Year of Contemporary Essays on Race and Pop Culture' Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/About-That-Contemporary-Essays-Culture-ebook/dp/B013V0CHK6 Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013V0CHK6 Digital download (e-book): https://gumroad.com/l/IkUa ****************** Links: 'Cornelia Crenshaw, Untiring Advocate for Justice:' https://owlcation.com/humanities/Cornelia-Crenshaw-Untiring-Advocate-for-Justice 'Honoring Black History Month - Cornelia Crenshaw, Unsung Hero of the Civil Rights Movement:' https://cleanenergy.org/blog/bhmcorneliacrenshaw/ 'ABOUT CORNELIA CRENSHAW:' https://corneliacrenshaw.com/about 'Cornelia Crenshaw:' http://womenofachievement.org/heritage/cornelia-crenshaw/