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DIGNITY & RIGHTS - A DESERVED
LEGACY FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN
Elahe
Amani – WNN Opinion
(WNN)
Barbara Jordan once wrote: “`We the people’; it is a very eloquent
beginning. But when the Constitution of the
2012 is the second time that Black History Month has brought focus and light to the contribution of African American Women. In 1996, the observance of Black History Month was also focused on the strides made by black women. From Sojourner Truth’s inspiring words; to Mary McLeod Bethune’s speeches; to the contemporary novels of Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, along with Barbara Jordan and Maya Angelo, the voices of African American women have raised our consciousness to the burdens of racism and sexism as they educate and inspire not only the women of color in U.S. but many thousands of women who live in global South who are also working today in their plight for equality, justice and inclusion.
Women like Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman took a risk to change the world and make it a better place and they did it in the face of racial and gender discrimination. These known and unknown ‘she’roes and agents of change have fought extraordinary battles for human rights, social, economic and political empowerment that has lit the path for other women.
Pioneer black women activists contributed to the women’s movement in the
Aileen Hernandez, whom I have the pleasure and honor to know through her leadership at Women’s Intercultural Network, is a community leader and political organizer who has never ceased struggling for racial and gender equality. Aileen was the first woman on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities Commission where she experienced discrimination against women of all colors.
From behind the scenes she urged Betty Friedan and others to start an NAACP for women. She was NOW’s first Executive Vice President and in 1970 was the second national president after Friedan. During Black History Month, and every day of the year, we shall honor those who came before us and paved the way for the accomplishments that black women, and all women of color, have accomplished.
As in the words of Carol Moseley Braun, they were brave “not to let others define them.”
History of Black History Month
While the struggle of African Americans has a much longer history, the
tradition of Black History Month goes back to the beginning of the 20th
Century. Historian and educator Carter G. Woodson originally founded
“Negro History Week” in 1926 at a time when most history books simply omitted
any African-American history or shared the central role African-Americans
played in the birth of the
Activism for civil rights among African Americans predates the civil rights
movement in the
It was Elizabeth Jennings Graham 1854 defiance of a streetcar
conductor’s order to leave his car that helped desegregate public transit in
During the civil rights movement, Septima Poinsette Clark, who often called the “queen mother” of civil rights, was an educator and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People activist decades before the nation’s attention turned to racial equality.
Sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer was beaten and jailed in 1962 for trying to register to vote. Eventually she co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and spoke at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
Vivian Malone Jones, against all odds, enrolled in the
These are not the only women who struggled for rights and dignity
During the 1920s and 1930s African Americans moved to the State of
Pioneer and talented African American women like Marian Anderson, who was
born in 1897 in
“When I sing… I want them to see my soul… and that it is colorless,” said
In 1955 she became the first black person to perform as part of the
Metropolitan Opera in
The stories of the life and struggle, contributions and strides of black women to the history and culture of the United States is a chapter of the history of this country that has more unwritten pages than written. May the future generations of black women keep moving forward in the tradition and struggle of those who came before them.
May these outstanding women keep moving forward for racial and gender justice, and equality.