Ceola Wallace (July 22, 1907 – March 20, 1994) was an American seamstress and civil rights activist from Mississippi. She was one of the African-American women who filed lawsuits in the

women's poll tax repeal movement The women's poll tax repeal movement was a movement in the United States predominantly led by women that attempted to secure the abolition of poll taxes as a prerequisite for voting in the Southern states. The movement began shortly after the r ...

to eliminate the requirement to pay taxes before one could vote. She was active in the 1964 voter registration, Freedom Summer Project.

Biography

Ceola Sloan was born on July 22, 1907, in Forrest County, Mississippi. She came from a large family which included four brothers — Jacob, Mose, Willie and Ison – and a sister, Louvenia. She was unable to finish more than the first grade of school, but taught herself to read and write. Her first husband was surnamed Boochie. They had eight children: Annie, Desseree, Eddie Lee, George, James Curtis, James H., Mary Lee, and Mose. Her husband died leaving Boochie a young widow and she went to work as a tenant farmer. She also took in laundry and did farm and domestic chores to earn support for the family. Earning $3 per week from her various jobs, Boochie taught herself to sew by reading the instructions on the back of dressmaking patterns. She remarried a construction worker named John Wallace and lived

Hattiesburg Hattiesburg is a city in the U.S. state of Mississippi, located primarily in Forrest County (where it is the county seat and largest city) and extending west into Lamar County. The city population was 45,989 at the 2010 census, with the populat ...

, where she gained a reputation as a seamstress. Wallace was very involved in the

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

and her photograph was featured in '' Ebony'' in September 1964, regarding the Freedom Summer Project, which tried to help African Americans register to vote. That year she filed a lawsuit along with Victoria Gray challenging the Mississippi poll tax statute which required voters to pay the tax before they could vote. She was one of several women active in the

who filed lawsuits to abolish poll tax laws. A three-judge federal panel ruled that the tax was unconstitutional in federal elections because it prohibited registered voters from casting their ballots. In addition to Mrs. Wallace's direct work in voter registration and at considerable danger to themselves, Mr. and Mrs. Wallace boarded several white voter-registration workers and teachers for the Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM) during the height of the Civil Rights years in the early 1960s.

Death and legacy

Wallace died on March 20, 1994, at the Conva-Rest Warren Hall in Hattiesburg. The documentary ''

Freedom Summer Freedom Summer, also known as the Freedom Summer Project or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. ...

'' was released in 2014, on the

Public Broadcasting Service The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...

's series '' American Experience''. It told the story of Wallace and other activists involved in the Freedom Summer Project.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wallace, Ceola 1907 births 1994 deaths People from Forrest County, Mississippi American tailors African-American activists American civil rights activists Activists from Mississippi American women's rights activists American anti-poll tax activists 20th-century African-American women American women civil rights activists