Ceola Wallace
{{Short description|American seamstress and civil rights activist}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Ceola Wallace
| image = Johnny_Waters,_Ceola_Wallace,_Willie_McGeey,_and_Jake_Plum_1964.jpg
| alt = Black and white photograph of a black woman and a black and a white male poll worker explaining voting registration to a seated black man.
| caption = l-r: Johnny Waters, Ceola Wallace, Willie McGeey, and Jake Plum. Waters, Wallace and Plum are poll workers assisting McGeey in registering to vote, 1964
| birth_name = Ceola Sloan
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1907|07|22}}
| birth_place = Forrest County, Mississippi
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1994|03|20|1907|07|22}}
| death_place = Hattiesburg, Mississippi
| nationality = American
| other_names = Ceola Boochie
| occupation = seamstress, civil rights activist
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
}}
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 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.{{sfn|Death Index|1994}}{{sfn|The Hattiesburg American|1977|p=30}} She came from a large family which included four brothers — Jacob, Mose, Willie and Ison – and a sister, Louvenia.{{sfn|The Hattiesburg American|1977|p=30}} 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.{{sfn|Bolton|1999}}{{sfn|The Hattiesburg American|1989|p=6}} They had eight children: Annie, Desseree, Eddie Lee, George, James Curtis, James H., Mary Lee, and Mose.{{sfn|The Hattiesburg American|1977|p=30}} 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.{{sfn|Bolton|1999}}
Earning $3 per week from her various jobs, Boochie taught herself to sew by reading the instructions on the back of dressmaking patterns.{{sfn|Bolton|1999}} She remarried a construction worker named John Wallace and lived Hattiesburg, where she gained a reputation as a seamstress.{{sfn|Bolton|1999}}{{sfn|The Hattiesburg American|1975|p=2}} Wallace was very involved in the civil rights movement and her photograph was featured in Ebony in September 1964, regarding the Freedom Summer Project, which tried to help African Americans register to vote.{{sfn|Bolton|1999}}{{sfn|Poinsett|1964|p=28}} 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.{{sfn|The Greenwood Commonwealth|1964|p=1}} She was one of several women active in the women's poll tax repeal movement who filed lawsuits to abolish poll tax laws.{{sfn|Podolefsky|1998|p=867}} A three-judge federal panel ruled that the tax was unconstitutional in federal elections because it prohibited registered voters from casting their ballots.{{sfn|Boothe|1964|p=1}}
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.{{sfn|The Hattiesburg American|1994|p=7}} The documentary Freedom Summer was released in 2014, on the Public Broadcasting Service's series American Experience. It told the story of Wallace and other activists involved in the Freedom Summer Project.{{sfn|Hinckley|2014}}
References
=Citations=
{{Reflist|30em}}
=Bibliography=
{{Refbegin|30em}}
- {{cite web |last1=Bolton |first1=Charles |title=Oral History/Interview: Sheila Michaels |url=https://www.crmvet.org/nars/sheila99.htm#sm99_cw |website=Civil Rights Movement Archive |publisher=Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement |accessdate=19 November 2020 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20190525161704/https://www.crmvet.org/nars/sheila99.htm |archivedate=25 May 2019 |location=San Francisco, California |date=June 5, 1999}}
- {{cite news |last1=Boothe |first1=Dallas |title=Poll Tax Non-Payment Receipt Ruled Out in Federal Election |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62261723/clarion-ledger/ |accessdate=October 31, 2020 |agency=United Press International |date=October 29, 1964 |newspaper=The Clarion-Ledger |location=Jackson, Mississippi |page=1 |via=Newspapers.com}}
- {{cite news |last1=Hinckley |first1=David |title='Freedom Summer,' TV review |url=https://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/freedom-summer-tv-review-article-1.1837812 |accessdate=19 November 2020 |date=June 3, 2014 |newspaper=The Daily News |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150112004003/http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/freedom-summer-tv-review-article-1.1837812 |archivedate=12 January 2015 |location=New York City, New York}}
- {{cite journal |last1=Podolefsky |first1=Ronnie L. |author-link=Ronnie L. Podolefsky |title=Illusion of Suffrage: Female Voting Rights and the Women's Poll Tax Repeal Movement after the Nineteenth Amendment |journal=Notre Dame Law Review |date=1998 |volume=73 |issue=3 |url=https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1776&context=ndlr |accessdate=October 28, 2020 |publisher=University of Notre Dame |location=Notre Dame, Indiana |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20201003185904/https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1776&context=ndlr |archivedate=October 3, 2020 |issn=0745-3515}}
- {{cite magazine |last=Poinsett |first=Alex |title=Crusade in Mississippi |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JaT6tBKGK3sC&pg=PA28 |magazine=Ebony |volume=19 |issue=11 |date=September 1964 |publisher=Johnson Publishing Company |location=Chicago, Illinois |pages=25–36 |issn=0012-9011}}
- {{cite news |ref={{harvid|The Hattiesburg American|1994}}|author= |title=Ceola Wallace |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62966100/hattiesburg-american/ |accessdate=November 19, 2020 |date=March 21, 1994 |newspaper=The Hattiesburg American |location=Hattiesburg, Mississippi |page=7 |via=Newspapers.com}}
- {{cite web |ref={{harvid|Death Index|1994}}|author= |title=Death Index: Ceola Wallace |url=https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:J1J8-SYC |accessdate=November 19, 2020 |date=March 20, 1994 |website=FamilySearch |publisher=US Social Security Administration |location=Alexandria, Virginia}}{{subscription required}}
- {{cite news |ref={{harvid|The Hattiesburg American|1989}}|author= |title=George Wallace Sr. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63610318/obituary-for-george-washington-boochie/ |accessdate=November 19, 2020 |date=June 8, 1989 |newspaper=The Hattiesburg American |location=Hattiesburg, Mississippi |page=6 |via=Newspapers.com}}
- {{cite news |ref={{harvid|The Hattiesburg American|1977}}|author= |title=James H. Boochie Services Saturday |url=https://newspaperarchive.com/obituary-clipping-jan-28-1977-2068312/ |accessdate=November 19, 2020 |date=January 28, 1977 |newspaper=The Hattiesburg American |location=Hattiesburg, Mississippi |page=30 |via=Newspaperarchive.com}}
- {{cite news |ref={{harvid|The Hattiesburg American|1975}}|author= |title=John Wallace Services Sunday |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/63612142/obituary-for-john-wallace-aged-87/ |accessdate=November 19, 2020 |date=January 31, 1975 |newspaper=The Hattiesburg American |location=Hattiesburg, Mississippi |page=2 |via=Newspapers.com}}
- {{cite news |ref={{harvid|The Greenwood Commonwealth|1964}}|author= |title=Seeks Injunction to Prevent Law from Being Enforced |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/62258880/the-greenwood-commonwealth/ |accessdate=October 31, 2020 |agency=Associated Press |date=June 1, 1964 |newspaper=The Greenwood Commonwealth |location=Greenwood, Mississippi |page=1 |via=Newspapers.com}}
{{refend}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wallace, Ceola}}
Category:People from Forrest County, Mississippi
Category:20th-century American artisans
Category:African-American activists
Category:American civil rights activists
Category:Activists from Mississippi
Category:American women's rights activists
Category:American anti-poll tax activists