Recy Taylor
By Kenneth Mullinax/ASU
Alabama State University's National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African American Culture (National Center) will host a special Black History Month forum, featuring a panel discussion of an infamous case involving a sexual assault against a South Alabama Black woman, Mrs. Recy Taylor. A number of Mrs. Taylor's family members will be in attendance.
The case involved the 1944 rape of Mrs. Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old wife, mother and sharecropper. The attack took place in Abbeville, Alabama, by a gang of six white males. The forum is based on this year’s national Black History Month theme of “African Americans and Labor.” The National Center has chosen to focus on a central aspect of this theme, which is “Race and Class in the African American Experience."
PANEL INCLUDES FAMILY MEMBER
The forum's panel discussion will explore the details of the case, Mrs. Taylor’s response to the crime perpetrated against her, and the White authorities’ refusal to bring the guilty parties to justice. The panel members will also highlight the movement launched to assist Mrs. Taylor that included help from Rosa Parks, the secretary of the Montgomery Chapter of the NAACP at that time; E.D. Nixon, Montgomery's NAACP branch president; and other concerned individuals from across the nation who supported Mrs. Taylor’s right to bring her attackers to justice.
Panelists include Mrs. Recy Taylor's brother, Robert Corbitt and the president of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP, Isaiah Sankey.
The National Center's contact: Yvette Harris (staff associate), 334-604-9067 or yharris@alasu.edu.