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WOMANISTS: BSU STUDENT STRIKERS of 1968 A thesis submitted to the faculty of San Francisco State University In partial fulfillment of ■y . ft The Requirements for TheDegree ’ ■Sbk Master of Arts In Ethnic Studies by Sharon Ann Jones San Francisco, California May 2018 Copyright by Sharon A. Jones 2018 CERTFICATION OF APPROVAL I certify that I have read Womanists: BSU Student Strikers o f1968 by Sharon Ann Jones and that in my opinion this work meets the criteria for approving a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree: Master of Arts in Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University. Dawn-Eiissa Fischer Associate Professor of Africana Studies WOMANISTS: BSU STUDENT STRIKERS of 1968 Sharon Ann Jones San Francisco, California 2018 The 1968 Student Strike, the longest student strike in United State’s history, was initiated at San Francisco State College by the Black Student Union (BSU), a group of young women and men in common activist effort. This thesis examines the involvement of a group of young women to discern the impact of that activism on their lives from that period to the present. The study will be conducted by interviewing former women of the BSU, living or visiting northern California, about their lives after their involvement in the strike at San Francisco State College (now State University). This study contributes to developments in Womanist theory, which examines Black women’s agency as activists in their own lives and that of their community. Moreover, it contributes to the literature that focuses on pro-active Black women, who contrary to societal malaise, are not afflicted with an “invisibility disease,” but rather, as noted by author Alice Walker’s definition of Womanist, are by choice, not subjugation, “Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female.” I certify that this is a correct representation of the content of this thesis. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to take this opportunity to thank God who has made all things possible. I thank Him for his divine protection, guidance, and opening doors for me. I thank my family for standing by me and encouraging me throughout this endeavor: Inez Logwood(Marie), Norma Jones(Jeannie), Versie Ford(Tinie), Barbara Peoples(Dennie) and Warren Brown(Warrnie). They are truly an inspiration for whatever I accomplish, personally or academically: Thanks to Marie for pushing me ever so hard and working my last nerve!!! I truly appreciate it though. Thanks to my children who are the apples of my eye: Bakia my first-born, who endured her eccentric mom and dad, Afiya (I cannot find her first baby pictures, so she says that I did not birth her); and thanks to my son Omar for being the best father to his son and daughter. I must give a shout-out to my grandchildren: Ahmira, Khalil, Keziah, Aniya and Solomon. Thanks to my advisor Dr. Dorothy Tsuruta who worked diligently and patiently with me. Without her wisdom, knowledge, and guidance this endeavor would not have been possible, and thanks also to Dr. Dawn-Elissa Fischer for her support. 1 give thanks to my Black Student Union (BSU) comrades: Dhameera Ahmad, Ramona Tascoe, Maryam Al-Wadi, Sharon Treskunoff, Cheryl Garrett, Carolyn Thompson, Joann Stringer, Benny Stewart, Danny Glover, George Murray, Bernard Stringer, George Colbert, Donald Smothers, Jerry Vernado, Jimmy Garrett, Vernon Smith, Terry Collins, and all brothers and sisters who sacrificed their lives for our on-going struggle. I give homage to Dr. Nathan Hare the first chairperson of the Black Studies Department. Thank you Momma- you are the epitome of a saint on earth. You loved everyone, and raised your children to know the Lord. Thank you. Without that foundation it would not have been possible to deal with the death of my first son, Tradobi. Ashe v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1. Personal Narrative 1 Methodology 10 Chapter 2. Literature Review 12 Part One: Womanism as a Growing Area of Scholarship 12 Part Two: Womanists of the 18th 19th and 20th Century 16 Chapter 3. Womanists Activists 20 18th Century Womanists 21 Lucy Terry 21 Phyllis Wheatley 23 Nancy Prosser 26 Jenna Lee 27 Elleanor Eldridge 28 vi 19th Century Womanists 29 Maria W. Stewart 29 Harriet Ross Tubman 32 Francis Watkins Harper 36 Sarah Parker Redmond 39 Charlotte Forten Grimke 41 Cathay Williams 44 Anna Julia Cooper 46 Ida B. Wells 48 Madame CJ Walker 50 20th Century Womanists 54 Dorothy Height 54 Fannie Lou Hamer 56 Shirley Chisholm 58 Nina Simone 60 Catherine Coleman Gobel Johnson 63 Alicia Garza 66 Misty Copeland 67 vii Chapter 4. Interview of Women of the 1968 Black Student Union 69 Black Women of the Strike Interview with Dhameera Ahmad 70 Interview with Sharron Treskunoff 83 Interview with Ramona Tascoe 90 EMPOWERMENT (poem) by Ramona Tascoe 105 Interview with Cheryl Garrett 113 Interview with Sharon Jones 117 Interview with Carolyn Thompson 124 Nia Carol Cornwell - Sharing in Prose and Poem 131 Chapter 5. Conclusion 135 Works Cited 136 viii 1 Chapter 1. Personal Narrative This study examines the womanist tradition of Black women, and posits that Womanism, not feminism captures the essence of Black women who composed the core of the 1968 BSU initiated strike that led to the creation of Black Studies at San Francisco State University, thus figures in the creation and maintaining of the College of Ethnic Studies. I begin here to define womanist by looking to the example of my mother and myself as a Black woman, who as a member of the BSU, participated in that historical movement. My mother, wise and self-determining, and philosophical about life, is the proto type of a womanist. She brought thought into action and resisted being dictated to by others in opposition to equality in America. She taught herself the skills to stretch a dime into ten dollars and oftentimes she could squeeze out even more, raising seven children alone when at the time it was not fashionable to declare oneself a “single parent.” My early years were spent on “The Hill,” referring to Hunter’s Point. My mother kept her children in church, clean, and fed. It was a shock to me when I learned that we were actually poor. Up to that point, I had not thought like that because my mother did such a painstaking job of protecting us from childhood worries. In this and other ways, my mother was in the tradition of womanist mothers, during the period of enslavement in the Americas. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a 19th-century African American 2 American abolitionist, race-advocate, writer and poet, captured this womanist spirit when she wrote, “The work of the mothers of our race is grandly constructive” (Kimberly Seals Allers). There was order in our lives. I had no idea that living in the projects pre­ determined my status in life. My mother did not own an automobile, yet she did not impose upon others to give her rides. She would travel by bus, train or boat and always, always managed to get where she needed to go. In addition to caring for her children and grandchildren my mother worked tirelessly in the church she attended in whatever capacity she was needed. At church she tapped into the spiritual and psychological uplift that contributed to carrying on in a world of turmoil. Ultimately she was honored with being installed as the District Missionary of the First Jurisdiction in the Church of God in Christ. Because we lived above the church, many Sundays after service our home became the meeting place for hungry church members, or those needing to use the restroom after holding it for hours in service. My mom also accommodated individuals needing to take a catnap before night service began. Momma had a kind heart and would often put others before her needs to extend a helping hand, regardless of creed or color. As a San Francisco State student living in a shared apartment, on one occasion while visiting my mother, suddenly out of my former bedroom walks this white woman. I mean a real WHITE woman, whom I had never seen before; in my mother’s house, the home I used to live in. I was really radical at the time, down on “Crackers”, couldn’t stand em.’ I glanced at momma as if to say “What is going 3 on here and who is that?” The look she gave me was, “You bet’ not say nothin’!” That was her way of communicating that two wrongs don’t make a right. When I look back on that situation today, I realize she was helping someone in dire need, regardless of race, and she was also setting an example for that young woman and me to follow. I am the third child in a family of seven children. Of the seven, I was the sick one with uncontrollable asthma; this was during a period of time before there were steroids and inhalers. My eldest sister, (she also had asthma though not as severe as mine) and I were regularly hospitalized. There were not many weekends when we were not in the emergency room fighting for our next breath. Numerous times my mother saw to it that my sister and I were “prayed for” during church service. It was not uncommon for the pastor to pray over pieces of cloth, and then distribute them to members of the church with special prayer needs. After church, my mother would pin the cloth onto our undershirts, as she was firm in her faith, and believed that God would heal us. I recall a time when I was having an asthma attack while watching this well-known televangelist, Oral Roberts.

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