An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted on 03/29/2025
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As Women's History Month 2025 draws to a conclusion, we celebrate the fierceness of Janie Culbreth (later Rambeau), one of the earliest organizers and demonstrators in Albany, Georgia --at a time when the still-coalescing SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) wasn't quite fully organized or entirely clear on its trajectory.
Born to sharecroppers in 1940, Janie and her family (she was the eighth of nine siblings) later left the plantation --receiving considerable threats as they did so, though fortunately none were acted upon. She would later reflect in an interview that, in the 1930s, "When Black people moved off the plantation, white landowners considered it an act of defiance and often falsified documents or made unfounded accusations to force their laborers to remain." She entered Albany State College, originally intending to major in French. Unsurprisingly she endured rigid segregation --it was likely during this period that she made the quiet but unshakeable decision not to endure any further indignities, and she joined the NAACP youth council. Among other acts of passive rebellion, she and several other Black students made a point of visibly drinking from "whites only" fountains, and she also penned editorials to the Albany Herald, expressing disappointment that so many were afraid to speak up against obvious injustices.
In 1962 Janie was arrested while demonstrating at Albany along with at least 40 other students; they had been protesting the arrest of the first five students that tried to integrate the local bus station. While in jail, she and her fellow students received word that Martin Luther King was coming to Albany, which definitely attracted greater national attention; unfortunately Dr. King would later regard the Albany movement as mostly an "early failure," but participants like Janie disagreed; if anything it had proven the ability of thousands of local people to organize, march, and protest without needing to rely on larger outside organizations --or singular charismatic individuals.
After release she and most of the other 40 students were expelled from Albany State, and had to complete their formal education at Spelman College. Her commitment did not waver, however; while at Spelman she also organized a march on Grady Hospital, protesting discriminatory hiring --and patient care-- policies. After graduation she committed full-time to the SNCC, mostly pushing voter registration drives. But as the civil rights movement waned (or at least went quiet for a while!), Janie began to pivot to seminarian work; eventually earning multiple doctorates (Christian Education and Pastoral Ministry) and even found time to at last land that Master's degree in French! For 38 years she would teach for the Dougherty School System and at Darton College. She married Deacon Ralph Rambeau in 1965 and they had three children.
In 1992 Rev, Rambeau founded the House of Refuge Baptist Church. In 2010 the incoming administration at Albany State College hosted a year-long celebration of the students who had been suspended and expelled for participating in civil rights activities; welcoming them back and praising their efforts --Janie was the Founder's Day speaker. For the fiftieth anniversary of the Albany protest in 2012, Rev. Rambeau was honored by the city of Atlanta, with no less than Julian Bond (see Lesson #72 in this series) as the keynote speaker. Rev. Rambeau died on July 30, 2017.
For further study: "Southern Georgia: Born Into The Movement" - SNCC Digital Gateway https://snccdigital.org/our-voices/strong-people/part-1/
An admission: for most of the month of March 2025 I have been reading a singularly amazing book: Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC, edited by Faith Holsaert (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010). Among the essays contained in this book are a comprehensive memoir by Rambeau and several of her contemporaries --some of which became lifelong friends-- in which she describes her arrest and her voter registration work (and also a few critical thoughts directed toward Dr. King!). I highly recommend picking up a copy for yourselves; these stories illuminate these remarkable lives so much better than I could ever hope to do. Rev. Rambeau also appears in a six-hour dramatized PBS documentary, This Far By Faith.
Next lesson - Lesson 181: Henry Ossian Flipper