Emilye Crosby, a history professor at the State University of New York at Geneseo and author of A Little Taste of Freedom: The Black Freedom Struggle in Claiborne County, Mississippi, discusses the significance of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the crucial role women played in its passage.

While well-known leaders of the civil rights movement like Martin Luther King Jr. are regularly lauded, Crosby explores and celebrates the work of ordinary citizens who organized at a grassroots level. The contributions of women, in particular, and the lessons learned from their successes are at the heart of her research.

Her presentation comes on the eve of Women’s Equality Day on August 26.

Crosby’s A Little Taste of Freedom won the Mississippi Historical Society’s Book of the Year Award (formerly the McLemore Prize) in 2006. She also edited Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles in a National Movement.