Civil Rights Pioneer Recy Taylor Passes Away

Recy Taylor was an African-American woman and a popular civil rights activist. She is known for refusing to accept the $600 her rapists offered her to forget that the rape ever happened. Recy died in her sleep at a nursing home in Abbeville, Alabama. She was 97. 

In 1944, a 24-year-old Recy was abducted by six white men in Abbevile, Alabama. The men then gang raped her and dumped her on the side of the road. They also threatened to kill her if she said anything about it. However, she went to the police anyway.

Here are a few things to know about her:

Recy's case was fought by famous civil activist Rosa Parks. Rosa had helped initiate the civil rights movement and is famous for refusing to give her seat to a white man on a bus.

Two all white, male grand juries declined to sentence the men, who even admitted that they had assaulted her.

In the film she said, "The peoples there — they seemed like they wasn’t concerned about what happened to me, and they didn’t try and do nothing about it. I can’t help but tell the truth of what they done to me.”

In 2010, she spoke about how she would have liked an apology from the people who had done this to her. “It would mean a whole lot to me,” Taylor said. “The people who done this to me … they can’t do no apologizing. Most of them is gone.”

The Alabama legislature passed a resolution apologizing to her in 2011.

Recently, her story has been made into a documentary called “The Rape of Recy Taylor” directed by Nancy Buirski. “With women being singled out on Time magazine’s cover, as part of the #MeToo campaign, I really want to draw attention to the black women who spoke up when their lives were seriously in danger,” she had told the Guardian.

Source: MSN

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