Down to Now: Memory, Narrative, and Women's Leadership in the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta, Georgia

This paper is a case study of African‐American women’s leadership. It documents women’s involvement in a voter registration drive in 1946 and traces the develop‐ment of an ‘official history’ of that event that emerged in the ensuing decades. This narrative shifted emphasis from the organising leadership that both women and men exhibited to a form of leadership – success in electoral politics – that pertained almost exclusively to men. Concluding remarks address the relevance of memory and narrative for writing the history of women’s leadership.