Carolyn McIntyre Norton + Betty Press

The right to vote for women came to fruition in 1920 with the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. However, for some the struggle did not end there. For the Yellow Rose Project we have focused on the stories of Black women working during the 1960s to improve voting rights in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, an epicenter for voting registration activity.

We honor their lives by preserving a glimpse into the courage they embody for making real change against the deep-seated practices and discriminatory Jim Crow laws aimed at excluding them from their constitutional right to vote.

Peggy Jean Connor — On being asked why, as a beauty shop owner in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, she was recruited in 1962 for leadership positions to fight practices used to suppress Black voter registration, she responded, “If they could get beauticians and midwives then we would have some influence over talking to other people...and owning our own businesses, there’s no way of cutting our money off.”

This portrait was taken in 2013 after a ceremony at the University of Southern Mississippi honoring her life’s work in civil rights. She was co-founder, Executive Secretary, Precinct Chairperson and national delegate for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and was Secretary/Treasurer of the Council of Federated Organizations which helped coordinate the 1964 Freedom Summer voter registration project. She was also jailed for picketing for blacks to win voter rights.

Doris Townsend Gaines — “In the afternoons, we went into some of the Black neighborhoods with some older youth to canvass for potential new voters, encouraging people to register and vote. When we got a favorable response, we would arrange transportation downtown to the courthouse for potential voters to register. I remember vividly sometimes we were afraid. It was very difficult times, but we were careful and stuck with the adult leaders.” On attending a Freedom School in Hattiesburg, Mississippi during Freedom Summer 1964.

This portrait was taken at Rowan High (now Elementary) School in Hattiesburg. Doris is the creator and editor of “The Class of 1968: A Thread Through Time” a compilation of coming-of-age stories from a segregated high school during a monumental time of integration, assassinations, military drafts, and the Civil Rights Movement.

Ellie Davis Dahmer — “Well the only way I can look at Vernon’s death and not cry about it is when I walk in the bank, I see Black faces there. You see buses driving, you see Black faces on them. You see the police force, you see Black faces. Well, his dying did all this — then, it’s worth it and he would have done it again.” Reflecting eight years after the 1966 firebombing of her home in Hattiesburg, Mississippi that took the life of her husband, Vernon Dahmer, for offering to pay poll taxes for other Black citizens from their family’s store. This portrait was taken at the 2020 dedication of a sculpture honoring her husband and his message, “If you don’t vote, you don’t count.” Ellie served as election commissioner for 12 years and lobbied for the reopening of her husband’s murder case, which, in 1998, resulted in the conviction of a former KKK Imperial Wizard.

Lillie Dwight — “We were not transported to a jail but to the Jackson Fairground.... People were being beaten to the point that blood was flowing from their heads and bodies.” Describing the day that she and her sister, as teenagers, peacefully protested in a march for voting rights in Jackson, Mississippi during Freedom Summer in 1964.

This portrait was taken in front of her family home in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, a rallying point for civil rights activists in the 1960s and where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was hosted just two weeks before his assassination. Her dream to have her childhood home declared a Historic Landmark was realized in 2019.

Ruby Wilson — From 1959 to 1962 all Black voter applications in Hattiesburg, Mississippi were rejected by Theron Lynd, the County Registrar, including Ruby’s. Among his tactics for denial was to require Black applicants to interpret difficult sections of the state constitution in writing. When her application was read as evidence in federal court, “The judge looked over to Lynd and said, ‘I couldn’t have interpreted it any better myself.’”

This portrait was taken in front of the Hattiesburg Courthouse where, in 1962, Ruby and 16 other witnesses testified in federal court exposing the discriminatory voting practices. Forty-three black people had their formerly rejected applications approved and left the courthouse as registered voters.