WOMEN IN THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS

Wednesday 28 May 08

WOMEN IN THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS

The Civil Rights 1968 Commemoration Committee is continuing to implement
a programme of events throughout this year to commemorate major episodes
and themes of the Civil Rights Movement. The next major event, entitled
"Those Where The Days My Friend", will be held in Dungannon on Saturday
May 31st.

The event will take the form of an inclusive discussion to commemorate
the heroic role played by so many women in the Civil Rights struggle in
the 1960s and subsequently. The event will be chaired by the renowned
journalist Susan McKay, and will be addressed by prominent speakers such
as Trade Union leader Inez McCormack, well-known playwright Anne Devlin,
who was a member of the People's Democracy at Queen's University in the
late Sixties, and former Minister for Agriculture Brid Rogers, who led
the first Civil Rights march in Lurgan and was a member of the Campaign
for Social Justice . The audience will be invited to give their personal
stories and recollections of those days during a four hour session
starting at 11 AM in the East Tyrone College on Circular Road,
Dungannon.

It is hoped that some of those who were involved in the Homeless
Citizens League in Dungannon in the early Sixties, with Dr Con and Mrs
Patricia McCluskey, and who went on to form the Campaign for Social
Justice -- the precursor of the Civil Rights Movement -- will take part
in the event. It is also hoped that some of the Derry shirt factory
girls, who bravely defied the Stormont Government ban on Civil Rights
marches in Derry city centre, will be present. A special presentation
will be made to Mrs Sadie Campbell, believed to be the last surviving
leader of the Springtown Camp Campaign -- the struggle to win rehousing
for the hundreds of families living in appalling conditions in the 1950s
and 1960s, in the abandoned Nissen Huts of Springtown army camp in
Derry, left behind by the US military after World War II.

Although this event is intended to honour the role of women in the Civil
Rights Movement, it is not just for women. Everyone, man or woman, who
was involved in the Civil Rights activities of the late Sixties, or who
may be interested in learning about what happened in those days, is
invited to attend.


For further information contact Tim Attwood, Civil Rights Commemoration
Committee, M:07802 279939 or e-mail civilrights1968@yahoo.co.uk or
www.NIcivilrights.org <http://www.nicivilrights.org/>