Inez Baskin
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Inez Jessie Baskin (June 18, 1916 – June 28, 2007) was an American journalist and civil rights supporter who covered the Civil Rights Movement and the
Montgomery bus boycott The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social boycott, protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United ...
for
African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
readers and publications.


Biography

Baskin was born in
Florala, Alabama Florala is a town in Covington County, Alabama, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 1,923. Geography Florala is located along the Alabama–Florida state line at (31.007712, -86.324957). It is bordered by the town of Lockha ...
, on June 18, 1916, to Cora Turner and Albert Lorenzo Turner. When Baskin was two years old, she and her parents moved to
Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama. Named for Continental Army major general Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River on the Gulf Coastal Plain. The population was 2 ...
. Florala, Alabama became too unsafe to reside in because of the
Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to KKK or Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian terrorism, Christian extremist, white supremacist, Right-wing terrorism, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction era, ...
. There, she attended Booker T. Washington High School. She married Wilbur Baskin in the Baptist Church. After positions as a teacher and a typist, she became a journalist and reporter for the "Negro News" section of the Montgomery Adviser newspaper. In 1955, following the arrest of
Rosa Parks Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (February 4, 1913 – October 24, 2005) was an American civil rights activist. She is best known for her refusal to move from her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, in defiance of Jim Crow laws, which sparke ...
, Baskin was hired by
Jet Magazine ''Jet'' is an American weekly digital magazine focusing on news, culture, and entertainment related to the African-American community. Founded in print by John H. Johnson in November 1951 in Chicago, Illinois, the magazine was billed as "The We ...
and the American Negro Press to cover the Montgomery bus boycott and other, lesser known events that occurred in the black community. Baskin was an active supporter of the bus boycott and the Civil Rights Movement, as well as a reporter of the event. She is most famous for riding one seat in front of
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...
on a Montgomery bus during the boycott. Baskin was known to support suffrage, having been photographed in a convertible, with a sign that declared her support for Young Alabama Democrats, and said that she was a registered voter. Baskin graduated from what is now
Alabama State University Alabama State University (ASU, Bama State, or Alabama State) is a public historically Black university in Montgomery, Alabama. Founded in 1867, during the Reconstruction era, it was one of about 180 " normal schools" established by state gove ...
with an education degree. She received a degree in divinity from
Selma University Selma University is a private historically black Baptist Bible college in Selma, Alabama, U.S.. It is affiliated with the Alabama State Missionary Baptist Convention. History The institution was founded in 1878 as the Alabama Baptist Normal an ...
, and taught classes to ministers in theological schools. She was a licensed social worker and a church pianist. She implemented Montgomery, Alabama's first
Head Start program Head Start is a program of the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and families. It is the olde ...
, as well as its first hot-lunch program for low-income children. Towards the end of her life, Baskin was passionate about teaching young children about racism, and influencing them to grow up without hatred. She believed that hatred was taught, and that no one was born with it. She spoke to groups of children across the country about her experience in the Civil Rights Movement. Baskin continued to write until her death, writing her own quarterly newspaper, "The Monitor." Baskin gave a keynote address at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, in 2007. The same year, the university established a scholarship in her name, called the "Willie Mae Goodwine and Inez J. Baskin Scholarship of Journalism". She died in
Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama. Named for Continental Army major general Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River on the Gulf Coastal Plain. The population was 2 ...
, of heart failure, on June 28, 2007.


References


Further reading

*Rabey, Jennifer (2009)
A Woman's Good Works: The Life of Inez Jessie Turner Baskin and Her Fight for Civil and Human Rights in the Cradle of the Confederacy
Thesis, Auburn University.


External links


Four photographs of Inez Jesse Turner Baskin as a child in Florala, AlabamaInez Baskin Papers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baskin, Inez Activists for African-American civil rights American civil rights activists 1916 births 2007 deaths Writers from Montgomery, Alabama Journalists from Alabama 20th-century American journalists