Final answer:
Evelynn Hammonds highlights the treatment of black women during the Civil Rights Movement, showing how their voices were marginalized and their identities commodified, demonstrating broader issues of recognition and respect within historical narratives of the time.
Step-by-step explanation:
Evelynn Hammonds examines black women's poor treatment during the Civil Rights Movement to provide an example of how the "politics of silence" and "commodification of Otherness" have negative effects on black women's lives. During the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement not only sought to end segregation and racism but also created a space wherein different voices within the Black community, including conservative Black women, could articulate their perspectives on social and political issues. These women like Zora Neale Hurston and others promoted self-determination and economic empowerment, diverging from the mainstream civil rights agenda. The movement was a time of crucial changes, including a focus on Black empowerment led by leaders like Marcus Garvey and W. E. B. Du Bois who responded to the discrimination of the era with various strategies.
However, while the era was marked by activism and intellectual flourishing, black women often faced marginalization and their contributions were not always fully recognized or valued, illustrating Hammonds' points on the politics of silence. The commodification of Otherness refers to the way that the characteristics of marginalized groups are often exploited or adopted superficially in mainstream culture without truly understanding or respecting the realities of those groups. In this context, historiographical narratives may have discounted or oversimplified the complex political identities and contributions of conservative Black women during the Civil Rights Movement.