In retrospect, it was something of a demure mug shot.
Buttoned up into a waist-whittling and broad-shouldered bar blazer, a flower tucked into her upswept milk braid, and thin spectacles perched upon her nose, Rosa Parks couldn’t have looked more like a lady when she was arrested by the police in Montgomery, Alabama, in December of 1955. Although the African-American seamstress and local chapter of the NAACP secretary had defied city law by refusing to give up her public bus seat to a white passenger, she hardly seemed like the radical the state of Alabama was claiming her to be. And that, of course, was the point.
By reframing the very idea of what a disrupter looked like, the civil rights movement was able to control its messaging. Presentation and, subsequently, dress came to be used as a tool of resistance across the movement—one that some of its most renowned female leaders employed with dexterity. Striking and often jarring optics such as this dignified woman being manhandled by the police revealed the daily horrors that many African-Americans confronted, and worked to shame the government into action.
Although style-conscious activism may seem like anathema to many in the current generation of female activists—including some of those descending upon D.C. tomorrow for the Women’s March on Washington—it’s worth remembering how earlier generations drew on the power of dress to advance social progress.
During the civil rights era, the “Sunday Best” look was de rigueur at nonviolent protests. Appearing polished and put-together brought a serious undertone to the proceedings and demanded that the activists be taken seriously as citizens. Donning Castleberry tweed suits and delicate strands of pearls as she marched alongside her husband, Coretta Scott King was the personification of grace under fire. The de facto first lady of the movement, there was not a curl in her marcel wave out of place as the mother of four stood up at rallies. Women’s and civil rights activist Dorothy Height couldn’t be ignored in her signature church hats—a vibrant and ladylike way to accessorize the professional business suits she wore when taking on lawmakers on Capitol Hill.