Patricia S. Due, Civil Rights Pioneer, Dies at 72
Women’s Project Documents Pain of Rape as Weapon of War
Patricia S. Due, Civil Rights Pioneer, Dies at 72
Patricia Stephens Due, a civil rights pioneer who and mother of two media 
figures, Tananarive Due, a professor and columnist for the Oakland Tribune, and Johnita Patricia Due, CNN’s chief diversity chair and assistant general counsel, died Tuesday at 72 after a two-year fight with cancer.
In 2003, she co-authored her own book with Tananarive Due, “Freedom In The Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of The Fight for Civil Rights.”
A story by Alicia W. Stewart for CNN began this way:
“The stories we tell often leave room for only one hero.
“In America, our civil rights hero is Martin Luther King.
But even he recognized the sacrifice of heroines like Patricia Stephens Due.
” ‘Going to jail for a righteous cause is a badge of honor and a symbol of dignity. I assure you that your valiant witness is one of the glowing epics of our time and you are bringing all of America [to] the threshold of the world’s bright tomorrows,” King said in a telegram to Due and fellow students.
“Patricia Stephens Due stayed in jail for 49 days, refusing to pay bail after she was arrested for sitting at a Woolworth lunch counter in Tallahassee, Florida.
“ ‘We are all so very happy to do this so that we can help our city, state and nation. We strongly believe that Martin Luther King was right when he said, “We’ve got to fill the jails to win our equal right”,’ she wrote in a letter to the Congress of Racial Equality’s James Robinson.
“She, her sister, six other Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University students and one high school student were jailed after participating in the peaceful sit-ins, a defining symbol of America’s civil rights movement.
“Due, a 20-year-old student then, led the first jail-in, and received global attention from leaders like King.
“Today, Patricia Stephens Due died after a two-year battle with thyroid cancer, and more than 50 years of activism.”
Lwange, 51, with her daughter, Florida, who had been raped the week before this photo was taken in 2008. The child had screamed at the time, then bled. With her vagina and her young psyche damaged, Florida would no longer speak. (Credit: Lynsey Addario/VII)
Women’s Project Documents Pain of Rape as Weapon of War
“The Women’s Media Center launched a new project today, ‘Women Under Siege,’ to raise awareness about how sexualized violence is used as a weapon of war, Mallary Jean Tenore wrote Wednesday for the Poynter Institute.
“The project, which Gloria Steinem initiated, has a website that features testimonies from journalists who have been sexually assaulted or have covered sexual assault, including CBS’ Lara Logan and New York Times photojournalist Lynsey Addario. Addario, who was captured in Libya last year, wrote about the impact of covering rape in Congo:
“Rape as a weapon of war was rampant in Congo. Soldiers raped women to mark their territory, to destroy family bonds (women were often ostracized from their families once they were raped), and to show their power and intimidate civilians. They gang-raped women — they used their weapons to tear them apart, causing internal tears resulting in fistula — and they forced the families of the victims to watch gang rapes in progress. The stories were unbearable, and the more testimonies I heard during interviews, the more angry and sad I became. As a photojournalist, I felt there was very little I could do for the women in the DRC but record their stories, and hope there would be some way to change the pattern in the future through awareness. , . .”
