“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-family: Verdana;”>“The woods are lovely dark and deep, but we have promises to keep and miles to go before we sleep.”
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Just before civil rights legend Frankie Muse Freeman exited the podium on July 28 as the 96th recipient of the NAACP Spingarn Award, she adapted the words of Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” to remind guests at the NAACP’s 102nd Annual Convention that the organization has much work left to do.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>As she donned the Spingarn Medal, which has since 1914 symbolized the outstanding noble achievement of an African American, it was a fitting tribute to a woman who has committed her long life to freedom-fighting, including more than 60 years of work as a civil rights attorney.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>As the latest recipient of the NAACP’s highest honor, Freeman, age 94, joined the historic ranks of W.E.B. DuBois, George Washington Carver, Carter G. Wilson, James Weldon Johnson, Mary McCleod Bethune, A. Philip Randolph, Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers and her good friend Dorothy Height.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“I applaud and appreciate the honor that you have bestowed upon me,” Freeman said. “Much of what we have done has been basic to the Constitution of the United States, and it has been done with the support of my family.”
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Her daughter Shelbe F. Bullock and her lone surviving sibling Allie Muse Peebles, along with several other family members, were on hand for the ceremony in Los Angeles. Several of her Delta Sigma Theta sorority sisters – including the current national President Cynthia M.A. Butler-McIntyre – came to support Freeman, who served as its 14th national president.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Even as she expressed her gratitude, Freeman continued her activism by issuing a charge to the audience in the Los Angeles Convention Center.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“We have a lot more work to do,” she said.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“In this country – which is still the greatest country in the world – each of us has the individual responsibility to stand up with positive power and with positive action and with putting your money where your mouth is in making this country turn into what it ought to be.”
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Freeman’s work on landmark cases – including a 1949 NAACP suit against the St. Louis Board of Education and a 1954 case against the St. Louis Housing Authority – guarantee her place in civil rights history. Among other historic honors, she also was the first woman appointed to the United States Commission on Civil Rights (for which she would serve for 16 years under four different U.S. presidents).
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”> “This year’s Spingarn Medalist has been a premiere advocate for African Americans for over 60 years,” said Benjamin Todd Jealous, NAACP president and CEO. “With numerous distinctions, including induction in the international Civil Rights Walk of Fame, she remains in the battle for equality and justice for all.” “font-family: Verdana;”>
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Instrumental in the revolution “font-family: Verdana;”>
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>According to Andrew Young, who introduced Freeman, her determination and drive were evident from the onset of her training as a civil rights lawyer. Young himself received the Spingarn Medal more than 30 years ago while serving as a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“What you have through these awards is a history of a revolution – and the young woman we honor tonight has been instrumental in that revolution,” Young said.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Young and Freeman entered Howard University at about the same time, Young as an undergraduate and Freeman as a law student who had graduated from Hampton University.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“While I was running around trying to find myself at the gym and the girls’ dormitory, she was already – in the ‘40s – engaging with the likes of Thurgood Marshall, Charles Hamilton Houston, William Hastie and others,” Young said.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“They were laying the foundation of the legal framework for the changing of America, and most of us didn’t know it was going on until it surfaced publicly and dramatically in 1954. But Frankie Muse Freeman had been working on it for more than a decade already.”
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Young envisioned what her struggle must have been like.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“None of us will ever know the nights spent laboring over cases, the struggles with public housing in St. Louis, wrestling with the corporations to provide support for the educational institutions on whose boards she served and the continuing dedication that she demanded of all of her friends, and especially her daughter,” Young said.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“And with all of that she managed to remain married for 52 years (to the late Shelby T. Freeman Jr.). We are grateful to the great people that created a revolution that you and I are beginning to enjoy.”
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Spingarn afterglow “font-family: Verdana;”>
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Three weeks after receiving her award, Freeman was still overwhelmed with gratitude as she reflected on the experience back home in St. Louis.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“When I read the letter saying I would receive it, I was moved to tears and I just said, ‘Thank you, Lord,’” Freeman said. “Some of the people that I knew that were dear friends – Dorothy Height, for example – had received this honor.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>It was her roots in “the last capitol of the Confederacy” in Virginia that led to her desire to serve as a civil rights attorney.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“There was racial segregation in Danville, but what we were taught growing up by our parents is that there are things that you have to accept, but there are things that you don’t have to accept,” Freeman said.
“margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal;”>
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“That is why we did not ride the bus or the street car – we walked. Our parents expected all of us to do our best, to be of service and to make a difference – and that is what I’ve tried my entire life to do.”
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>Her parents, William B. and Maude Beatrice Muse, laid the foundation for Freeman and her seven siblings to become civil rights stalwarts.
“font-size: 9.0pt; font-family: Verdana;”>“The involvement in NAACP was no question,” Freeman said. “You were going to be a member.” Her brother Edward “Ed” B. Muse Sr., who worked for the NAACP, also was paid tribute by the NAACP with a Life Membership Award in his honor.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>“I don’t remember anything other than this was something you had to do. There was racial discrimination, so you had to work to do what you can to eliminate it,” Freeman said.
“font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;”>“During many of those years, some of the action I would take filing the suits, I was called a troublemaker. But we have an obligation to speak up, speak out and take whatever action is appropriate in a positive, effective and meaningful way. We have to take a stand. We have a duty.”
