The Girl Scouts used them to separate black and white girls. Now they have their first Black CEO

08/20/2020 Technology, USA


Former ExxonMobil lawyer Judith Batty now serves as interim CEO of the organization for youth leaders. She succeeds Sylvia Acevedo, who has served as CEO of GSUSA since 2016 before retiring in August.

Batty, a former Girl Scout, joined the organization as a Brownie with her local Nassau County Council in New York. She continued to scout over the years, before later serving two terms on the National Board. Prior to GSUSA, Batty served as both a corporate executor and senior legal counsel for ExxonMobil, where she was the first wife and first Black General Counsel of the ExxonMobil branch in Japan.

Batty – whose mother was also a Girl Scout – says her top priority as interim CEO is “to ensure a smooth transition.” Since taking the helmet on Monday, Batty has carried out her plan of “working with, learning from and listening to all members” of the GSUSA movement.

The Girl Scouts of the US were originally founded as a movement for all girls in 1912 by Juliette “Daisy” Gordon Low, but girls of color were left out – especially African-American girls.

“… It is safe to say that in 1912, a time of virulent racism, neither Daisy nor those who authorized the constitution considered African-American girls to be part of the ‘all’,” says history professor Stacy A. Cordery at Iowa State University wrote in her book, “Juliette Gordon Low: The Remarkable Founder of Girl Scouts.”

Segregation was widespread in the United States following Jim Crow’s laws and the “separate but equal” legal doctrine adopted in 1883 following the reversal of the 1875 Civil Rights Act.

During this time, Low led local communities to decide whether it would be acceptable to register troops composed of African-American scouts. Although afraid that White girls in the South would resign if Black girls were allowed to participate, Low believed “[w]They are ultimately bound to admit it, “Cordery wrote. Low’s main concern was the damaging effect that integrated troops of African-American girl scouts would have on membership. They feared” rapid and widespread dismissal or defection “of White girl scouts. to the Camp Fire Girls, “a competitive, all-white organization,” Cordery wrote.

However, the first African-American family members were part of the third American troop formed in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1913, prior to the first officially recognized all-African-American Girl Scout troop in 1917, according to the official blog of GSUSA. Although the third U.S. force included African-American girls in 1913, troops remained largely segregated by race for decades. The first officially registered all-African-American Girl Scout troop in the South was formed in 1942 in Nashville, Tennessee, by Josephine Holloway, one of the first African American Girl Scout troop leaders, the official blog quotes.

But African-American girls struggle to organize because resources normally were scarce in Black communities, especially in the South.

While earning her PhD in history at Rutgers, Miya Carey documented in 2017 the early struggle of Black Girl Scouts to integrate with White troops and the national organization.

“It was not just moving to the South. Local racial regulations often shaped Black girls’ ability to participate as Girl Scouts,” said Carey, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at Binghamton University in New York.

The desegregation of the Girl Scouts began in the 1950s, intensified by national efforts initiated by the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Martin Luther King, Jr., would go on to describe the Girl Scouts as “a force of desegregation” in 1956. Later, in 1975, Gloria Dean Randle Scott would become the first Black National President of GSUSA. Since the desegregation of GSUSA in the 1950s, the likes of Mae Jemison, Condolezza Rice, Venus and Serena Williams and Mariah Carey have joined the notes of the 108-year-old organization’s remarkable Black Women alumnae.
The Girl Scouts have 2.5 million members, consisting of 1.7 million family members and 750,000 adult members who work primarily as volunteers, according to the GSUSA website. As of September 2017, Scout membership consisted of 13.1% African Americans, nearly 17% Hispanics, 5.5% Asians, and 71% Whites, according to membership data cited in the 2017 GSUSA Annual Report.

“While we are proud of our progress, I am engaging the movement in difficult conversations about race in an effort to make the Girl Scouts an active anti-racist organization,” Batty said. “In addition, I will work to advance our technology so that we can meet our girls where they are and deliver programming directly on them on the platforms they use. And in fact, I am working to ensure that our Movement has the means necessary to overcome violations caused by the pandemic. “

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