Five Women Who Changed the Fight for Justice A story of racial terror, legal persistence, and the power of civil action.

The story of the Chattanooga Five is a story of ordinary people forced into extraordinary

circumstances. In 1980, five Black women in Chattanooga, Tennessee, became victims of a

racist attack carried out by members of the Ku Klux Klan. What happened to them was

terrifying, but the violence itself was only the beginning. Their struggle would expose deep

weaknesses in the criminal justice system and lead to a civil lawsuit that demonstrated a

powerful new way to hold organized hate groups accountable.

The five women were Viola Ellison, Lela Mae Evans, Opal Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and

Fannie Mae Crumsey. Four were struck by shotgun pellets during a drive-by attack.

Crumsey was injured by shattered glass when the violence continued nearby. All survived.

Their names would eventually become linked to a legal victory whose importance reached

far beyond Chattanooga.

This e-book examines the attack, the racial climate surrounding it, the criminal

proceedings, the community response, the civil-rights lawyers who joined the fight, and the

landmark federal civil case that followed. It also considers the broader meaning of the

Chattanooga Five: five women who refused to let an inadequate criminal outcome become

the final word on what had happened to them.