AnneMarie Mingo's Book Signing | A Day In The Life

A Gainesville author debuts her book about the unseen women of the Civil Rights Movement.

Local author AnneMarie Mingo, Ph.D, hosted a hometown book launch to honor the everyday, Black churchwomen of the Civil Rights Movement.

Mingo is the daughter of long-time Gainesville community leaders Dr. GW and Cynthia Mingo, and said how important it was to acknowledge the impact her hometown had upon her life's work.

Mingo’s church home in Gainesville is Mount Olive AME Church, which is behind the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center where the book launch took place.

She said the church was where she grew up and learned her history and the power of faith—a place she drew inspiration from to write her book.

“It’s the small action we take everyday that can change the world,” Mingo said. “My mother and others like her is why I talk about women of the movement. Their actions were rooted in the fact that the movement was bigger than themselves.”

Mingo talked about how faith turned the one-day Montgomery bus boycott into a boycott that lasted 381 days.

“People would ask, ‘How did they do that?’ It was their faith,” Mingo said. “The singing and the praising encouraged them to go one more day.”

About 50 to 75 people gathered at the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center at 837 SE Seventh Ave. on Monday to attend the book signing of Mingo’s book titled, “Have You Got Good Religion?: Black Women’s Faith, Courage, and Moral Leadership in the Civil Rights Movement.”

There was also book discussion between Mingo and retired University of Florida professor Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, Ph.D., a civil rights activist who was an organizer with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party.

Mingo spent many years conducting oral history interviews with Black women whose participation in the Civil Rights Movement are largely unknown.

In her 232-page book, Mingo shares the wisdom of eight grassroots leaders who were active in the north and the south during the Civil Rights Movement.

“It is not one person who makes the movement,” Mingo said. “It is the masses of people that make the movement.”

The eight women Mingo featured in the book were Lilian Sue Bethel, Doris Virginia Brunson, Peggy Lucas, Rose Davis Schofield, Bessie Smith Sellaway, Marjorie Wallace Smyth, Beatrice Perry Soublet, and A. Lenora Taitt-Magubane.

In her book, she also featured four Movement for Black Lives Christian leaders: Rev. Dr. Karen Anderson, Rev. Traci Blackmon, Rev. Dr. Leslie Callahan, and Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey.

Mingo said most of the research from the churches was between two churches in the north and the south.

The two churches in the south she referred to in Atlanta, Georgia were Big Bethel AME Church and Ebenezer Baptist Church and the two churches in New York were Abyssinia Baptist Church and First Bethel AME Church.

“I lived two months at a time in New York during the summers,” Mingo said. “I went to church with them and took the bus with them. I didn’t want to step in and take. I wanted to be a part of the process.”

Queen Mother Mangye Naa Amiami Osuowaa Okropong I, also known as Vivian Filer, the executive director of the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center, introduced Mingo to the audience.

Filer is a church member of Mount Olive AME Church and remembers hosting the baby shower at her home when Cynthia Mingo was pregnant with AnneMarie Mingo.

“This is such an honor to introduce her,” Filer said. “Being born here [in Gainesville] and raised in Mount Olive AME Church, she knew that all the mothers at Mount Olive were her mothers. I’m thankful for her parents for giving her the stability to think outside the box.

Author AnneMarie Mingo began with a brief lecture where she talked about two of the eight women she featured in her book and shared her insight on the three virtues discussed throughout the book: Freedom Faith, Courageous Resistance, and Theo-Moral Imagination.

Mingo also talked about the death of George Calvin Bess Jr. whose body was found in a creek in West Point, Mississippi on Aug. 6, 1967.

He left Tallahassee in the summer of 1967 to participate in voter registration activities with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) throughout the South.

Mingo shared how his death was a reminder of the danger associated with organizing, but it did not deter her mother and countless other women from organizing in the community.

The lecture was followed by Simmons sharing her experience on the frontlines in Mississippi registering people to vote and acknowledge a Civil Rights Movement heroine of Mississippi, Mrs. Eberta Spinks.

Simmons said Spinks played a crucial role in helping the Mississippi Freedom Riders find places to rest and organize during the movement in the city of Laurel.

Simmons said she lived in Spinks’ home for 18 months during her time there in Mississippi and remembered what she told her when she was at her door.

“She told me, ‘I’ve been waiting on you my entire life,’” Simmons said.

“I’m so glad you are lifting these women up,” Simmons said to Mingo. “I was so elated when you did that because she’s an unsung heroine people don’t know. Spinks, like so many women in Mississippi, made the movement happen.”

The author’s parents, Dr. GW and Cynthia Mingo, said they are proud of her for taking the time to interview unsung heroines of the Civil Rights Movement.

“They invited her into their homes like she was a member of the family,” her mother said. “If we don’t look back and know what they went through, it might return. We want this generation to learn our history and pass it on. This is a time for them to learn.”

Article written by Voleer Thomas via the Gainesville Guardian

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