C. DeLores Tucker

Activist and politician

• Born: October 4, 1927
• Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Died: October 12, 2005
• Place of death: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Best known for her outspokenness against the gangsta rap musical genre, Tucker also was a civil rights activist, politician, and champion of equal rights for women. She held a number of posts within the Democratic Party, served as Pennsylvania’s first African American woman secretary of state, and chaired the National Political Congress of Black Women.

Early Life

Cynthia DeLores Nottage Tucker was born on October 4, 1927, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was the second of eleven children born to the Reverend Whitfield and Captilda Nottage. Tucker was raised in a deeply religious household in which dancing, listening to and playing music, and dating were prohibited until the Nottage children reached the age of twenty-one.

The Reverend Nottage believed deeply in his faith and refused to accept payment for his pastoral work. As a result, Captilda launched several entrepreneurial ventures to raise money. She owned and operated a grocery store and an employment agency for southern African Americans who migrated North in search of employment opportunities, and served as landlord for several properties.

Tucker attended the Philadelphia High School for Girls, where her outspokenness and leadership abilities were evident at a young age. When she was sixteen, she spoke out against a hotel in Philadelphia that refused entry to a group of African Americans. She graduated from high school in 1947. Tucker joined the Philadelphia chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and became one of its top fund-raisers. She attended Temple University, Pennsylvania State University, and Wharton College of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1951, she married William A. Tucker, whom she had met in 1947.

Life’s Work

Tucker continued to work with the NAACP and was an active participant in several marches for equal rights, including the historic Selma-to-Montgomery, Alabama, march led by Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1965. Tucker also actively campaigned and raised money for African American political candidates. She was appointed Pennsylvania’s secretary of state in 1971, earning her the distinction of being the first African American woman to hold this position and the highest ranking African American in state government.

Tucker’s achievements as secretary of state included ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment to lower the voting age from twenty-one to eighteen, working to ensure that women were represented at all levels within the Democratic Party and state government, and championing affirmative action, equality in education, and welfare reform. In 1984, Tucker founded the National Political Congress of Black Women. In addition to the work she did on behalf of her organization, Tucker was the first African American woman elected to serve as president of the National Federation of Democratic Women.

Tucker’s commitment to equality continued after her political career ended. In 1991, she founded the Bethune-Dubois Institute, an organization dedicated to promoting cultural awareness and education to African American youth. She initiated the campaign to have Sojourner Truth memorialized with other leaders of the women’s suffrage movement in 1992. The Sojourner Truth memorial bust was completed and unveiled in 2009 and joined the busts of white suffrage leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony in the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

Tucker’s fervor in the fight for equality and respect for African Americans and women carried over to the music industry. Outraged by the sexually explicit lyrics of some rap artists, Tucker partnered with Republican leader William Bennett to organize protests against Time Warner Music and several music stores that sold “gansta” rap.

Tucker received various awards and honorary doctoral degrees, including the NAACP Freedom Fund and Thurgood Marshall awards for her work in the fight for civil rights. After she died on October 12, 2005, she was posthumously honored by the state of Pennsylvania with a portrait at the Pennsylvania State Museum and a historical marker in the North Building of the state capitol.

Significance

Tucker was a champion of civil rights and equality for African Americans and women. She was a pioneering leader, politician, and activist whose legacy lives on through the National Political Congress of Black Women and the Bethune-Dubois Institute.

Bibliography

“C. DeLores Tucker, Civil Rights Activist, Political Leader, Dies in Philadelphia” Jet 108, no. 18 (October 31, 2005): 18-19, 52. Obituary offers a summary of Tucker’s career and influence on other civil rights leaders.

Lamb, Yvonne Shinhoster. “C. DeLores Tucker Dies at 78; Rights and Anti-Rap Activist.” The Washington Post, October 13, 2005. Obituary detailing Tucker’s campaign against explicit gangsta rap lyrics.

Mayo, Kierna. “Caught Up in the (Gangsta) Rapture: Dr. C. Delores Tucker’s Crusade Against ’Gangsta’ Rap.” In And It Don’t Stop? The Best American Hip-Hop Journalism of the Last Twenty-five Years, edited by Raquel Cepeda. New York: Faber & Faber, 2004. Critical examination of Tucker’s condemnation of gangsta rap by a writer from the hip-hop magazine The Source.