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Black
History Month and black women
By Melissa Martin
Let us teach our black daughters and our white daughters about civil
rights and activists for freedom during Black History Month. Let us
care about women of color. 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 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 African American 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.
Civil Rights in Ohio
The State of Ohio enacted the Ohio Civil Rights Act of 1959 to “prevent
and eliminate the practice of discrimination in employment against
persons because of their race, color, religion, national origin, or
ancestry.” The Ohio Civil Rights Act established the Ohio Civil Rights
Commission to help eliminate discrimination in Ohio.
www.ohiohistorycentral.org/.
The Ohio Civil Rights Hall of Fame was created in 2009. The Civil
Rights Hall of Fame seeks to acknowledge outstanding Ohioans who are
recognized as pioneers in human and civil rights and who have advanced
the goals of equality and inclusion. Watch the video of the 2018
Induction Ceremony at www.ohiochannel.org. The Ohio Channel is a
service of Ohio’s public broadcasting stations.
Black Women in Ohio
Toni Morrison, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, hails from
Lorain, Ohio. She won a Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in
1988 for Beloved. President Barack Obama presented Morrison with the
Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Stephanie Tubbs Jones was the first African-American woman elected to
Congress from Ohio. She was a municipal judge, trial court judge and
Cuyahoga County prosecutor.
Sophia Mitchell was the first African-American woman to serve as a
mayor in Ohio. In 1976, she was appointed in Perry County.
“Just remember the world is not a playground but a schoolroom. Life is
not a holiday but an education. One eternal lesson for us all: to teach
us how better we should love,” proclaimed Barbara Jordan, the first
Southern African-American woman elected to the United States House of
Representatives.
This is not an exhaustive list of former or current black women
involved in civil right movements, government offices, or in the
struggle for equality. I have highlighted only a few.
Black History Month is celebrated every February in the United States.
White women, let the named and unnamed black women of struggle,
freedom, and equality 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
Melissa Martin, Ph.D, is an author, columnist, educator, and therapist.
She resides in Southern Ohio.
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