Prathia Hall
Prathia Laura Ann Hall Wynn | |
---|---|
Born | (1940-01-01)January 1, 1940 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Died | August 12, 2002(2002-08-12) (aged 62) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Nationality | American |
Occupation(s) | Womanist theologian, ethicist |
Known for | Civil Rights Movement |
Prathia Laura Ann Hall Wynn (January 1, 1940 – August 12, 2002) was an American leader and activist in the Civil Rights Movement, a womanist theologian, and ethicist. She was the key inspiration for Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
Biography
Early life
Of African American heritage, Hall was raised in Philadelphia, the daughter of Berkeley L Hall and Ruby Hall, née Johnson.[1] Her father founded Mount Sharon Baptist Church, an inner-city congregation in an under-served area of the city.[2] Her father was a Baptist preacher and a passionate advocate for racial justice,[3] who regarded her as his successor. He inspired her to pursue religion and social justice.[2][4] Prathia believed she was brought into the world for a reason – to integrate religion and freedom together.[5]
Her leadership potential was recognized early. She credited many groups, such as the National Conference of Christians and Jews for singling her out and helping her to develop.[2] Hall attended predominantly white schools until the age of five; she took a train ride South with her sisters to visit their grandparents. The girls were forced to sit in the segregated seats located just behind the engine.[3] This was her first experience of dehumanizing discrimination.
Civil rights involvement
By her mid-teens, Hall hoped to join the Civil Rights Movement.[3] In high school, she became involved with Fellowship House, an ecumenical social justice organization, where she studied the philosophy of nonviolence and direct action.[6] After graduating from high school, she attended Temple University, located in Philadelphia, not far from her home. In 1961, while still a junior at Temple, Hall was arrested in Annapolis, Maryland, for participating in the anti-segregation protests on Maryland's rural Eastern Shore. She was held without bail in jail for two weeks.
After graduating from Temple with a degree in political science, Hall joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); she worked with Charles Sherrod in Southwest Georgia.[7] She became one of the first women field leaders in southwest Georgia.[8] Hall later worked in Terrell County, Georgia, known as "Terrible Terrell County." because of its violence against civil rights activists. African Americans who attempted to register to vote would end up missing or dead.[9] On September 6, 1962, night riders fired into the home where Hall and other activists were staying, wounding her, Jack Chatfield, and Christopher Allen.[6]
She was shot at by and jailed many times in Georgia, including in the notorious Sasser, Georgia, jail. While working for SNCC, Hall canvassed door to door to register voters. She also taught in Freedom Schools (educational programs to teach potential voters how to prepare for and pass the required voter registration tests).[10] She became involved in the Albany Movement. She became known for her oratorical power, which she expressed in movement meetings and preaching.
"I Have A Dream"
In September 1962, Hall agreed to participate in a service commemorating Mount Olive Baptist in Terrell County, which had been burned to the ground by the Ku Klux Klan. It had been a center for voter registration and for other mass meetings in the county among African Americans. The service was attended by Martin Luther King Jr. and SCLC's strategist James Bevel. Hall was scheduled to deliver a prayer during the service. According to Bevel, "As she prayed, she spontaneously uttered and rhythmically repeated an inspiring phrase that captured her vision for the future-'I have a dream'". Bevel claims that her use of this memorable phrase is what inspired King to begin to use it as a fixture in his sermons.[11]
Selma, Alabama
Hall was called to Selma, Alabama in the winter of 1963 after SNCC field secretary Bernard Lafayette was beaten and jailed there in relation to demonstrations for voter registration. There were numerous instances of brutality. The violence became too much for Hall after the events of Bloody Sunday on March 7, 1965, when marchers intending to go to the state capital were beaten on a bridge just outside the city.[12] Hall suffered a theological crisis related to these events. She resigned from SNCC in 1966 after it began to shift away from continued support of nonviolence.[10]
Later life
Hall decided to pursue divinity studies and ordination, after many years of wrestling with a calling to the ministry. She moved to Roosevelt, New York with her husband Ralph Wynn. While living in NY, she earned a Master of Divinity, Master of Theology, and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, in New Jersey. In 1978 Hall began serving as pastor at the Mt. Sharon Baptist in Philadelphia, driving there every weekend from Princeton. Hall struggled with religion after her daughter died of a stroke.[13] She later had some chronic issues, suffering from pain due to injury in an old accident. This ultimately contributed to her death many years later.[2]
Hall was one of the first women ordained in the American Baptist Association. Hall joined the faculty at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, eventually becoming dean of African American studies, and director of the school's Harriet Miller Women's Center.[14] She was a visiting scholar at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta. She later joined the faculty at the Boston University School of Theology, holding the Martin Luther King Chair in Social Ethics.[15] Her work focused on womanist theology and ethics.
Hall was well known for being a compelling speaker and preacher. In 1997, Ebony magazine named Hall as number one on their list of "Top 15 Greatest Black Women Preachers".[16] She remained active in her role in the until her death in 2002 after a long battle with cancer, at the age of 62.
Quotations about Hall
I remember sitting one day in the little area outside Forman's, transcribing a mass meeting speech given by Prathia Hall, a SNCC field secretary then posted to Selma, Alabama. As she described the violence in Selma, the awful beauty of her words—and the intensity of her moral outrage—took me by such force that I remember typing on to that long, green mimeo stencil with tears just streaming down my face. It was as if some force of nature had swept me away to another place.
— Judy Richardson[17]
Prathia Hall is one of the platform speakers I would prefer not to follow.
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.
— Prathia Hall
See also
References
- ^ Pace, Courtney (2019). Freedom Faith: The Womanist Vision of Prathia Hall. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press. pp. 6–7. ISBN 9780820355054.
- ^ a b c d Oral with Sheila Michaels, 1999, .
- ^ a b c "Prathia Hall", This Far By Faith, PBS.
- ^ Civil Rights Movement in 1963 C- Span
- ^ "Prathia This Far by Faith
- ^ a b "Prathia Hall - One Person One Vote". One Person One Vote. Retrieved 2015-11-16.
- ^ "WSP Scholars - Dr. Prathia Hall". www.itc.edu. Archived from the original on 2007-01-29.
- ^ "Prathia Hall Social Justice Award | WomanPreach! Inc". womanpreach.org. Retrieved 2015-11-16.
- ^ Civil Rights Movement of 1963, C-Span
- ^ a b "Prathia Hall: An Extraordinary, Ordinary Saint". EthicsDaily.com. 2014-08-28. Retrieved 2015-11-16.
- ^ "Society for the Study of the Black Religion" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-04.
- ^ "Bloody Selma | Civil Rights Teaching". civilrightsteaching.org. Retrieved 2015-11-16.
- ^ "Prathia Hall" This Far by Faith
- ^ "Prathia Hall_When Faith Trembles". Archived from the original on 2011-12-19. Retrieved 2012-05-05.
- ^ "Learning about a faith-filled woman, Prathia Hall", My Soul Rhythms. March 21, 2011.
- ^ Kinnon, Joy Bennett (November 1997). 15 Greatest Black Woman Preachers. Ebony. p. 102.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ Holsaert, Faith et al. Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC. of Illinois Press, 2010.
- ^ [source=https://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/people/prathia_hall.html PBS This Far by Faith]
Further
- Faith S. Holsaert; et al., eds. (2010). Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC. of Illinois Press.
External links
- SNCC Digital Gateway: Prathia Hall, Documentary website created by the SNCC Legacy Project and Duke, telling the story of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and grassroots organizing from the inside-out
- v
- t
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(timeline)
groups
- Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
- Atlanta Student Movement
- Black Panther Party
- Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
- Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
- Committee for Freedom Now
- Committee on Appeal for Human Rights
- Council for United Civil Rights Leadership
- Council of Federated Organizations
- Dallas County Voters League
- Deacons for Defense and Justice
- Georgia Council on Human Relations
- Highlander Folk School
- Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
- Lowndes County Freedom Organization
- Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
- Montgomery Improvement Association
- NAACP
- Nashville Student Movement
- Nation of Islam
- Northern Student Movement
- National Council of Negro Women
- National Urban League
- Operation Breadbasket
- Regional Council of Negro Leadership
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
- Southern Regional Council
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
- The Freedom Singers
- United Auto Workers (UAW)
- Wednesdays in Mississippi
- Women's Political Council
- Ralph Abernathy
- Victoria Gray Adams
- Zev Aelony
- Mathew Ahmann
- Muhammad Ali
- William G. Anderson
- Gwendolyn Armstrong
- Arnold Aronson
- Ella Baker
- James Baldwin
- Marion Barry
- Daisy Bates
- Harry Belafonte
- James Bevel
- Claude Black
- Gloria Blackwell
- Randolph Blackwell
- Unita Blackwell
- Ezell Blair Jr.
- Joanne Bland
- Julian Bond
- Joseph E. Boone
- William Holmes Borders
- Amelia Boynton
- Bruce Boynton
- Raylawni Branch
- Stanley Branche
- Ruby Bridges
- Aurelia Browder
- H. Rap Brown
- Ralph Bunche
- Guy Carawan
- Stokely Carmichael
- Johnnie Carr
- James Chaney
- J. L. Chestnut
- Shirley Chisholm
- Colia Lafayette Clark
- Ramsey Clark
- Septima Clark
- Xernona Clayton
- Eldridge Cleaver
- Kathleen Cleaver
- Charles E. Cobb Jr.
- Annie Lee Cooper
- Dorothy Cotton
- Claudette Colvin
- Vernon Dahmer
- Jonathan Daniels
- Abraham Lincoln Davis
- Angela Davis
- Joseph DeLaine
- Dave Dennis
- Annie Devine
- Patricia Stephens Due
- Joseph Ellwanger
- Charles Evers
- Medgar Evers
- Myrlie Evers-Williams
- Chuck Fager
- James Farmer
- Walter Fauntroy
- James Forman
- Marie Foster
- Golden Frinks
- Andrew Goodman
- Robert Graetz
- Fred Gray
- Jack Greenberg
- Dick Gregory
- Lawrence Guyot
- Prathia Hall
- Fannie Lou Hamer
- Fred Hampton
- William E. Harbour
- Vincent Harding
- Dorothy Height
- Audrey Faye Hendricks
- Lola Hendricks
- Aaron Henry
- Oliver Hill
- Donald L. Hollowell
- James Hood
- Myles Horton
- Zilphia Horton
- T. R. M. Howard
- Ruby Hurley
- Cecil Ivory
- Jesse Jackson
- Jimmie Lee Jackson
- Richie Jean Jackson
- T. J. Jemison
- Esau Jenkins
- Barbara Rose Johns
- Vernon Johns
- Frank Minis Johnson
- Clarence Jones
- J. Charles Jones
- Matthew Jones
- Vernon Jordan
- Tom Kahn
- Clyde Kennard
- A. D. King
- C.B. King
- Coretta Scott King
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Martin Luther King Sr.
- Bernard Lafayette
- James Lawson
- Bernard Lee
- Sanford R. Leigh
- Jim Letherer
- Stanley Levison
- John Lewis
- Viola Liuzzo
- Z. Alexander Looby
- Joseph Lowery
- Clara Luper
- Danny Lyon
- Malcolm X
- Mae Mallory
- Vivian Malone
- Bob Mants
- Thurgood Marshall
- Benjamin Mays
- Franklin McCain
- Charles McDew
- Ralph McGill
- Floyd McKissick
- Joseph McNeil
- James Meredith
- William Ming
- Jack Minnis
- Amzie Moore
- Cecil B. Moore
- Douglas E. Moore
- Harriette Moore
- Harry T. Moore
- Queen Mother Moore
- William Lewis Moore
- Irene Morgan
- Bob Moses
- William Moyer
- Elijah Muhammad
- Diane Nash
- Charles Neblett
- Huey P. Newton
- Edgar Nixon
- Jack O'Dell
- James Orange
- Rosa Parks
- James Peck
- Charles Person
- Homer Plessy
- Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
- Fay Bellamy Powell
- Rodney N. Powell
- Al Raby
- Lincoln Ragsdale
- A. Philip Randolph
- George Raymond
- George Raymond Jr.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
- Cordell Reagon
- James Reeb
- Frederick D. Reese
- Walter Reuther
- Gloria Richardson
- David Richmond
- Bernice Robinson
- Jo Ann Robinson
- Angela Russell
- Bayard Rustin
- Bernie Sanders
- Michael Schwerner
- Bobby Seale
- Cleveland Sellers
- Charles Sherrod
- Alexander D. Shimkin
- Fred Shuttlesworth
- Modjeska Monteith Simkins
- Glenn E. Smiley
- A. Maceo Smith
- Kelly Miller Smith
- Mary Louise Smith
- Maxine Smith
- Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson
- Charles Kenzie Steele
- Hank Thomas
- Dorothy Tillman
- A. P. Tureaud
- Hartman Turnbow
- Albert Turner
- C. T. Vivian
- Wyatt Tee Walker
- Hollis Watkins
- Walter Francis White
- Roy Wilkins
- Hosea Williams
- Kale Williams
- Robert F. Williams
- Andrew Young
- Whitney Young
- Sammy Younge Jr.
- Bob Zellner
- James Zwerg
songs
- "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round"
- "If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus"
- "Kumbaya"
- "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize"
- "Oh, Freedom"
- "This Little Light of Mine"
- "We Shall Not Be Moved"
- "We Shall Overcome"
- "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)"
- Jim Crow laws
- Lynching in the United States
- Plessy v. Ferguson
- Buchanan v. Warley
- Hocutt v. Wilson
- Sweatt v. Painter
- Hernandez v. Texas
- Loving v. Virginia
- African-American women in the movement
- Jews in the civil rights movement
- Fifth Circuit Four
- 16th Street Baptist Church
- Kelly Ingram Park
- A.G. Gaston Motel
- Bethel Baptist Church
- Brown Chapel
- Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
- Holt Street Baptist Church
- Edmund Pettus Bridge
- March on Washington Movement
- African-American churches attacked
- List of lynching victims in the United States
- Freedom Schools
- Freedom songs
- Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
- "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence"
- Voter Education Project
- 1960s counterculture
- African American founding fathers of the United States
- Eyes on the Prize
- In popular culture
- Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
- Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
- Civil Rights Memorial
- Civil Rights Movement Archive
- Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument
- Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument
- Freedom Rides Museum
- Freedom Riders National Monument
- King Center for Nonviolent Social Change
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
- Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
- National Civil Rights Museum
- National Voting Rights Museum
- St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument
historians