If Your Back's Not Bent: The Role of the Citizenship Education Program in the Civil Rights Movement
“Dorothy Cotton is an inspiration to so many male and female leaders in the modern civil rights movement. Her time at the helm of the Citizenship Education Program remains a textbook example of successful grassroots organizing. We should all pay close attention to her story.”–Ben Jealous, NAACP President and CEOThe Citizenship Program of SCLC is the best kept secret of the Civil Rights Movement. Dortothy Cotton was the engine that made it move to become a crucial part of the movement. It produced Fannie Lou Hamer and dozens like her and empowered them all across the deep South to produce an authentic grass roots revolution.This book tells the story that most chroniclers have missed because of their penchant for sensationalism and not actual historical facts that can be supported by intentional research.Hundreds were trained at the Dorchester Center in south Georgia which made them the backbone of the Civil Rights Movement.Though unheralded, Dorothy Cotton was as crucial to the Movement as was King, Abernathy and Shuttlesworth in her dogged preparation of the “troops.”—Rev. Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, Pastor Emeritus of Harlem’s Canaan Baptist Church of ChristDorothy Cotton has given us the story of the heart and lungs of the Freedom Struggle led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Millions in the present generation do not know that the Freedom Struggle had a life-long learning curriculum. Dorothy was the director of this academy—the Citizenship Education Program which had hundreds of graduates. One of the most famous and honored graduates of the above program was Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer from Ruleville, Mississippi. She was both pupil and prophet who then went on to change the world in her time and space. Every generation should know this story and be blessed and empowered by it.—Rev. Dr. Otis Moss, Jr., Pastor Emeritus of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church"Dorothy F. Cotton's book,If Your Back's Not Bent, is a distinct reminder that women have been endlessly omitted from the written histories of civil rights movements. Moreover, Ms. Cotton pays tribute to numerous, unfamed, brave people whose work supported the great leaders, such as Dr. Martin Luther King...and, collectively, they shared a collective quest to end the denial of human rights." – Camille Cosby“If Your Back’s Not Bentis more than the compelling story of a motherless child who grew up in a shotgun shack on an unpaved road in Goldsboro, N.C. to become the lone female in Dr. Martin Luther King’s inner leadership circle. It’s the story of how people such as Dorothy Cotton and those she trained became what the civil rights movement needed them to be. Cotton’s Citizenship Education program taught ordinary people how to interpret the Constitution, set goals, run meetings, plan marches, practice nonviolence and—most importantly--realize they could change both themselves and America.”—Betty DeRamus, author ofForbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground RailroadandFreedom by Any Means“Dorothy Cotton’s superb book, with its vision of the Beloved Community, is a vivid reminder that the 1960s civil rights Movement was one brilliant moment in the long American journey to democracy. Read it, be inspired, and act.”—Joan Steinau Lester, award-winning author ofBlack, White, Other“This history of the Civil Rights Movement would not be complete without the experiences and insights of Dorothy F. Cotton, who provides a much-needed female perspective on life on the front lines with Martin Luther King. Jr. Her lessons on citizenship and shedding notions of "victimhood" resound with relevance today, giving us a vibrant blueprint for the future.”—Tananarive Due, American Book Award winner, co-author ofFreedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights