Remembering civil rights activist Anna Arnold Hedgeman of Anoka
Most Minnesotans don't know that a Black woman who grew up in Anoka, Minn., and graduated from Anoka High School — Anna Arnold Hedgeman — was the only woman on the organizing committee for the 1963 March on Washington. She was also the first Black student to attend Hamline University in St. Paul.
Hedgeman was a lifelong activist for civil rights and social justice, but has been largely forgotten.
New York University historian Thomas Sugrue wrote a book exploring the stories of Northern activists who challenged racial inequality, "Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North." Hedgeman is featured prominently in the book.
Sugrue spoke in 2018 at the Minnesota Historical Society's History Forum to a sold-out audience that had never heard of that trailblazing Anoka woman.
Hedgeman died in 1990 at the age of 90. There’s now a Hedgeman Center for Student Diversity Initiatives at Hamline University.
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