Flonzie Wright Brown has been involved in the Civil Rights Movement since 1963. Her presentation examines the role of youths in the movement, the importance of women in the struggle, the impact of slavery and lessons learned and the impact today of obtaining the right to vote. Ms. Brown recaps the Civil Rights Movement and the lessons learned, and examines current strategies for achieving more community involvement, participation and proactive involvement. She stresses the importance of continued voter registration and education, chronicling and preserving our history, getting out the vote and increasing community awareness, interest and involvement.
During the Civil Rights Movement, Ms. Wright helped register thousands of voters in Mississippi. She was the first African American female elected official in Mississippi post-Reconstruction. She is a best-selling author of Looking Back to Move Ahead, which chronicles her journey growing up in a small Mississippi town through her work in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and 1970s. She worked directly with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and many other humanitarian activists, both locally and nationally. Her experiences are documented in a 1997 film entitled Standing on My Sisters’ Shoulders.