The United States celebrates Black History Month annually. Let the world celebrate the history of all black women as well. Daughters of Africa (published in 1994) and the new volume New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of 20th and 21st Century Writing by Women of African Descent (published 2019) by editor Margaret Busby is an anthology about African women writers. Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom (2018) by Keisha N. Blain highlights black women leaders who demanded equal recognition and participation in global civil society.
Let us teach our black daughters and our white daughters about civil rights and activists for freedom. Let us care about black womanhood. Could the civil rights movement have happened without black women? No, indeed. Let It Shine, Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters (HMH Books for Young Readers, 2013) authored by Andrea Davis Pinkney and illustrated by Stephen Alcorn is recommended.
Bold. Gutsy. Plucky. Scrappy. Determined. Spirited. Sojourner Truth, Biddy Mason, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary McLeod Bathune, Ella Josephine Baker, Dorothy Irene Height, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Shirley Chisholm are featured.
Born into slavery as Isabella Baumfree in 1797, Sojourner Truth was an Afro-American women’s rights activist. Her famous “Ain’t I a Woman” speech was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention. “…And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?”
“Nobody’s free until everybody is free.” Fannie Lou Hamer dedicated her life to fighting racial injustice. In 1964 she co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and ran for Congress in Mississippi in 1965.
The first African-American woman elected to Congress, Shirley Chisholm of New York, won election to the House in 1968.
More Brave Black Women
Of the 127 women serving in the United States 116th Congress, 22 are Black. In 1993, Carol Moseley Braun became the first African American female to serve as U.S. senator. Gloria Jean Watkins, known by her pen name bell hooks, is the author of Feminism is for Everybody. The bell hooks Institute in Berea, KY, celebrates, honors, and documents the life and work of this acclaimed intellectual, feminist theorist, cultural critic, artist, and writer. www.bellhooksinstitute.com. Known as the “Mother of the American Civil Rights Movement,” Septima Poinsette Clark was an activist, teacher, and advocate for education. www.biography.com/.
“In the 20th century, African American women formed the backbone of the modern Civil Rights Movement. They were the critical mass, the grassroots leaders challenging America to embrace justice and equality for all,” according to The National Women’s History Museum. www.womenshistory.org/.
There were countless unnamed black women who struggled for freedom and justice. Let us remember them as well. NASA’s employees Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan were black scientists featured in the film Hidden Figures. Astronaut Mae Jemison became the first African-American woman in space in 1992. Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Condoleezza Rice, Joycelyn Elders, M.D., Maya Angelou and other black women stand as female icons for civil rights and equality.
The Civil Rights Movement was triumphant in 1964 and 1965, with the federal government’s passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
White women, let the named and unnamed black women of struggle, freedom, and equality nationally and internationally be nestled in our spirits and let their struggles be on our lips.
“There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made.—Michelle Obama
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