I was actively involved with the Sumter County Movementbeginning in 1962. My brother, the late Bobby Lee Kaigler Jr. and I became involved with the Americus and Sumter County Movement after attending mass meetings with my grandmother, Mrs. Elnora Pitts in rural Sumter County, Georgia. My mother and my grandmother were both state licensed Black female insurance agents in Americus and southwest Georgia.
In 1967 I was one of the first three Blacks (girls) to graduate from Americus High School under Freedom of Choice. The first three Blacks to graduate from Americus High School in 1967 were: Robertina Freeman (Fletcher), Bessie Walton, and I, Emmarene Kaigler (Streeter).
Also, I was incarcerated in the Leesburg stockade from Tuesday, July 16 and I was released on Friday, September 13,1963. I am, was and will always be one of the 16/17 true "Stolen Girls" of the Lee County Stockade who was captured on film in the stockade by SNCC photographer. Mr. Danny Lyon, featured in Jet Magazine in 1963 and later dubbed "The Stolen Girls of the Leesburg Stockade in Essence Magazine, 2006 by Ms. Donna Owens.
I recently published my first book titled "Unlawfully Incarcerated at age Thirteen." Please read this true, pivotal, civil rights, and Black History story.
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