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. I remember fervently praying to God that I would be healed from this

condition like the people on TV. However, many years later it’s still with me.

In my adult years, I have come to appreciate that my mother’s ability to persevere

against the odds, had been passed on to her from her mother, and I benefitted as a mother

from that tradition, traced back to our enslaved forebears. My mom was one of the best,

but I do not recall her sitting down with me, doing homework, or instructing me on job 4

preparation. What time did she have, and what skills was she equipped with, having completed school at the ninth grade level? But I do recall her saying: “Sharon your children will do well in life because of you.”

In the year 1967, things were happening, the social unrest of the south permeated the Bay Area with a vengeance. The demand for social justice was so thick in the air it could be cut with a knife. Martin Luther King Jr. led marches for civil rights. Malcolm X cautioned, “The Ballot or the Bullet,” James Brown sang, “Say it Loud, I’m Black and

I’m Proud,” and the Black Panthers, fed up with police brutality in the Black Community, made an appearance at the State Capitol fully armed with firearms and ammunition, demanding “ equal rights and justice for all Black and Brown people.” Black students at

San Francisco State College, now San Francisco State University, were protesting the lack of relevancy of the education offered at that institution. They changed the name of the Negro Students Association to the Black Students Union (BSU), and became one of the foremost organizations that initiated the San Francisco State College Strike of 1968.

While attending Balboa ini 967,1 became an active participant of the Black

Student movement with a new found level of Black Consciousness. “I’m Black and I’m

Proud” was the anthem of the day. Students at Balboa readily adopted the natural hairstyle and African clothing in an attempt to identify with the “Motherland,” contrary to the opinion of the school administration. The last six weeks of 12 th grade I almost got expelled because of my decision to wear long African attire to school. I was instrumental 5

in forming the first BSU at Balboa. During one of our BSU meetings, three brothers,

Benny Stewart, Danny Glover, and Terry Collins from San Francisco State College BSU,

made a presentation to recruit Black students to State. The administration agreed to

accept 400 black and brown students in the fall of 1968, due to their numbers being

underrepresented on campus. I had the desire and aptitude to attend college, (I always

wanted to become a doctor) but not the academic preparation. When I presented the idea

of getting a higher education to my counselor, she immediately rebuked me saying,

“State is not the place for you to go, as you are not prepared for college.” She failed to

suggest how I could be prepared; she continued to push the point on the basis that I was just sixteen years old and the average age for State at the time was twenty-six. Due to my

stubborn nature, I applied anyway in the spring of 1968, and was accepted for the fall

semester. Immediately, I was tossed into the throngs of college activity.

Entering San Francisco State as a freshman in September 1968,1 was drawn to

the strongly motivated and intelligent young Black men and women of the BSU, who

were in the process of initiating the strike, which began November 1968 and ended April

1969. The strike was long and arduous; many lives were changed as a result of it;

unfortunately one of our friends/comrades lost a hand trying to set a bomb in the

gymnasium that went off prematurely.

Early on in the beginning of the strike, I went from classroom to classroom along

with Dr. Nathan Hare and 2 other students educating students and professors about the 6

strike and it’s demands. We entered classes in session demanding, “class is now over!”

We also walked picket lines, passed out literature, attended numerous meetings and press conferences as well as participated in sit-ins in the administration building. We attended political education classes and first aid classes. I remember practicing removing bullets from oranges. We frequented the shooting range, volunteered in the community, and tutored in after school programs. It was a glorious time in history to witness the various fractions of the Black Community coming together in support of the striking students.

Prominent individuals marched the picket lines, spoke at rallies, and were arrested along with the students. Among our many supporters were Dr. Carlton Goodlett, Rev. Cecil

Williams, Willie Brown, Ron Dellums, and members of The Black Panther Party.

Contrary to a general misconception, the women of the movement were not passively involved; they worked tirelessly alongside the men in various capacities and supported them from the conception of the strike to the end. During negotiations with the administration to end the strike, male BSU negotiators were barred from the meetings, being labeled as troublemakers and instigators. A core female member of the BSU,

Ramona Tascoe, agreed to meet with the college president, S.I. Hayakawa to negotiate the demands of the students to bring the strike to an end.

Our efforts to bring about social change were not confined to the campus. Many of our activities involved working with grass-root organizations within the community. I volunteered for the Panther’s Free Breakfast Program at Sacred Heart Church in San 7

Francisco, and tutored children as well. The Free Breakfast Program was the first of it’s kind in the country, feeding hundreds of children a hot meal before they faced the rigors of learning. I recall it being quite dark outside when I reported to work at 4:00 am, however, there were always several sisters working diligently, preparing meals for the hungry children expected soon to arrive. Chores were delegated and sisters worked well with one another, which resulted in a smooth running operation. I also volunteered briefly at the Free Clinic, another program initiated by the Panther’s.

In 1972 I left San Francisco and relocated to Oakland. Growing up in San

Francisco you accepted the fact that the majority of weather forecasts were predicted as foggy, cloudy and cold. I was amazed to learn that across the Bay Bridge the weather was quite different, being breathtakingly gorgeous at times. Through friends in Oakland, I learned of Nairobi College an independent school in East Palo Alto. Students attending

Nairobi, after completing their general education requirements were admitted into

Stanford University. It was sweet while it lasted. Nairobi no longer exists, which is not the case for Stanford.

It was at Nairobi College in East Palo Alto, that I met and became involved with the man who would stay in my life several years, and with whom I had four children. He was an accomplished musician and the head of the music department at Nairobi, and the leader of his band known as “The Sons and Daughters of Light.” I was introduced to avant-garde music and art, a different way of eating, thinking and living through him: he 8

was light years ahead of his time. We filmed our 1st daughters birth and raised our children vegetarians and musicians: each one played an instrument. He took a group of his students on a musical exchange program to Lagos, Nigeria in 1972 in which many of students’ lives changed “for the better” after their experiences in the “Motherland.”

I arrived in Lagos and remained for approximately three weeks - several weeks after my partner arrived, who was lodging at the time in the home of the famous Nigerian

Soku musician; Fela Ransom-Kuti, now deceased. He later moved to a small town outside of Lagos, however, when the authorities learned he was residing illegally in the country without the proper visas, he was forced to leave and return to the United States.

The experience of actually going to Africa enabled me to observe firsthand the commonalities of people throughout the African/Black Diaspora.

In 1991, my partner and I separated at the time our eldest son was diagnosed with encephalitis. Separated now, I saw the care of my sick son from the time he was fourteen until his eventual death at age twenty-five. All the while I cared for my three other children, in the example of my mother, figuring out what was necessary to raise my children as a single parent. Today all are living productive lives; two college graduates- my son graduated from UC Davis, a daughter graduated from Chico State, and my eldest daughter, who had to endure our experimentations as a first child, such as her birth being filmed when it wasn’t the norm, is a BWW, a Black Working Woman, I call her my “rich” child. During the years of raising my children, having been trained as a phlebotomist, I was able to provide for them and instill in them self-worth, community consciousness, and provide them a spiritual foundation to carry them through life. 9

“God is good.” Today, now that my children are responsible adults, I have returned to college to earn a Masters Degree in Ethnic Studies, with an emphasis in

Africana Studies at San Francisco State University. Since my days here as an undergraduate, I have continued my activities in the community, and now I bring a study of the BSU Black women’s activism of 1968 to this MA Thesis. 10

Methodology

This study will be conducted using a combination of the Cultural and General

Interview Approach. The cultural interview is defined for this study as focusing on the norms, values, understandings, and taken-for-granted rules of behavior of a group or society. This type of interview reports on typical shared activities and their meanings.

This style of interview is relaxed and questions flow naturally with no fixed agenda.

People are interviewed several times so that emerging themes are pursued later.. .in the cultural interview the interviewer is partner and co-constructs the interview and report.

The cultural report, besides being the expert’s story, is credible because it consists of the words of members of the culture. We assume that people are basically honest and that they have similar views. The researcher can mix types of interviews and approaches

(What is Qualitative Interviewing online)

In Interview as a Method for Qualitative Research, Daozury Valenzuela and

Pallavi Shrivastava define the general interview approach as intended to ensure that the same general areas of information are collected from each interviewee; this provides more focus than the conversational approach, but still allows a degree of freedom and adaptability in getting the information from the interviewee. (Online source)

I interact directly with women of the 1968 Black Student Union (BSU), who figured among the core BSU members who planned and implemented the strike. In my 11

role as interviewer, I also figure familiarly with the interviewees, in having been a participant with them in that BSU led student strike. I asked each woman a point blank question, aimed at tapping into her womanist sensibility. That question is: Describe your role in the 1968 BSU Student led strike as active or passive participant. 12

Chapter 2. Literature Review

Part One

Womanism as a Growing Area of Scholarship

This literature review is in two parts. Womanism as a growing area of scholarship, and Womanists of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Womanism, Black

Womanism, and Africana Womanism all posit concern for the entire race of Africana people. Theorists in Africa and throughout the African Diaspora stress that focus, and ardor against attempts to divide Black people into separate struggles of race, gender, and class. Drawing from an African American cultural expression, “womanish,” Alice

Walker contributes to the growing womanist movement. Specific to my study is that part of her definition that makes the point that a womanist is “Committed to the survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female” (Walker xi). In this particular understanding, Walker’s position is shared with that of Africana Womanist, Clenora

Hudsom Weems, who in “Africana Womanism: An Historical Global Perspective for

Women of African Descent makes the point that “Africana Women... have historically demonstrated their concern for the entire Africana Community” (1735)

In Womanism and African Consciousness, Mary E. Modupe Kolawole stresses the whole people concept as central to any definition of Womanism. She writes that womanism “is a global ideology for African women which embraces racial, gender, class, 13

and cultural consciousness” (24). Further, she quotes Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi

(“Womanism: The Dynamics of the Contemporary Black Female Novel in English”) as arguing that

Black womanism is a philosophy that celebrates Black roots, the ideas of black

life, while giving a balanced presentation of black womandom. It concerns itself

as much with the Black sexual power tussle as with the world power structure that

subjugates Blacks. (24)

According to Obioma Nnaemeka, the impact of womanism goes beyond the

United States to Africa where many women scholars and literary critics (Chikwenye

Okonjo Ogunyemi, Tuzyline Jita Allan, and Mary Modupe Kolawole, in particular) have embraced it as an analytical tool. (2) Nnaemeka supports Patricia Hill Collins conclusion that “womanism seemingly supplies a way for Black women to address gender- oppression without attacking Black men” (2).

Added to the voices of African women, is that of Ruth Mompati, the South

African activist who during that struggle noted: The South African woman...

finds the order of her priorities in her struggle for human dignity and her rights as

a woman dictated by the general political struggle or her people as a whole. The

national liberation of the Black South African is a prerequisite to her own

liberation and emancipation as a woman and a worker. (112-113) 14

In “Africana Womanism: The Cultural Voice of Black Women,” Brenda Vemer

says: The incredible history of Africana women has provided them with a unique

perspective that has inspired inordinate spiritual strength, which produces

tenacious cultural courage. (6)

Moreover, and here also specific to the present study, Vemer says, “[T]he rank-and-file

Africana woman has remained loyal to the intra-cultural solutions to the male/female conflict and explores the deeply rooted spiritual legacy of these resilient Africana women” (6).

In “ Womanism and Black Feminism: Issues in the Manipulation of African

Historiography, Valethia Watkins brings comprehensive analysis to her critique of any gender labeling that intentionally or not, drives a wedge between Black women and men apart

African women [have] a conceptualization of African struggle that simultaneously

sought the liberation of their incarcerated womanhood and the fettered manhood

of African men from white racial domination. They sought to restore human

dignity to the entire race. There was no question of prioritizing race issues over

gender issues or vice versa, because the never delinked the two. (282) 15

Watkins brings rigorous challenge to any coining of terms that prove useful to divisive of a people. As regards to how Africana women self-define, Julia Hare wisely observes, “Women who are calling themselves Black Feminists need another word that describes what their concerns are. Black Feminism is not a word that describes the plight of Black Women” (1735). 16

Part Two

Womanists of the 18th 19th and 20th Centuries

Slave Narratives: Forward to Literature review of Womanist Forebears of the 18 th

Century.

Among the earliest record of the experiences of enslaved Black people in America is that of recorded accounts of enslavement, as told to abolitionists who worked the Underground Railroad, where people fleeing the south found bouts of comfort, and the chance to unload their grief on sympathetic ears. The accounts of slavery were also documented in the north, following emancipation, and often told by older people in reflection on their experiences when enslaved. Two such accounts included here are the onset of this move into the 18 th century. They depict the extreme life situation of enslaved people at the unmerciful hands of the enslavers, which severely tested the faith and will of Black people, but did not succeed in cowering the will of

Black men and here Black women. The following two personal accounts of slavery inform this study of Black womanists rising to the challenge.

The experiences of Margaret Ward bom in the 18th century were recorded and published after she reached freedom in the North, under the title “She Would Not Be

Whipped, She Would Rather Die.” Her account, details the brutality of slavery. Ward endured beatings and when she could not be broken she was punished by way of her 17

husband being sold away, and her newborn baby suffering neglect. She is described as “a large woman, tall and well formed, her complexion black, her countenance always pleasant, though she seldom laughed. She talked but little.” At age twenty “she became the wife of a worthy young man to whom she had given her best affections.” The jealous enslaver, angry at what he deemed “her stubbornness and resistance to his will” when she fought back against his advances, sold her husband as punishment. When her baby was bom, the enslaver continued to punish her by forbidding her to leave he baby in the care of the nursery, presided over by elderly enslaved women to weak to work in the fields.

The enslaver forced her “to leave the child under the shade of a bush in the field, returning to it but twice during the long day”. “Left alone the infant became apparently senseless, exhausted with crying.” Although Ward “felt it would be better for both herself and child if it were dead, yet a mother’s heart impelled her to make an effort to save it, and by caressing him and careful handling she resuscitated” the baby, relieved he had pulled through:

As soon as she heard its feeble, wailing cry, she made a vow to deliver her boy

from the cruel power of slavery or die in the attempt, and falling prostrate, she

prayed for strength to perform her vow, and for grace and patience to sustain her

in suffering, toil and hunger; then pressing her child to her bosom, she fled with

all the speed of which she was capable toward the North Star. (Eber Petitt Online) 18

Ultimately after a harrowing run from the hunters she reached Philadelphia and then New York.

The second account of enslavement selected here is told directly by Mary

Reynolds to an interviewer (“Mary Reynolds, “published in Bull Whip Days: The Slaves

Remember. Edited by James Mellon. Weidenfeld and Nicolson: New York, 1988.) Mary

Reynolds’ narrative is interviewed years after slavery had ended. At the time of this telling she is quite elderly, but age does not diminish the horror of slavery in her recalling of it:

Slavery was the worse days that was ever seed in the world. They was past tellin’,

but I got the scars on my old body to show this day. I seed worse than what

happened to me. I seed them put men and women in the stock with they hands

screwed sown through holes in the board and they feets tied together and they

naked behinds to the world. Solomon the overseer beat them with a big whip

Massa look on. The [Black people] better not stop in the fields when they hear

them yellin’. They cut the flesh ‘most to the bones, and some they was, when they

taken them out of stock and put them on the beds, they never get up again. When

[the enslaved man or woman] died [from the beatings] they let his folks come out

of the fields to see him before he died. They buried him the same day-take a big

plank and bust with a ax in the middle ‘nuf to bend it back, and the dead [person]

in betwixt it. They’d cart him sown to the graveyard on the place and bury him 19

deep ‘nuf that buzzards wouldn’t come circlin’ round. [Black people] mourns

now, but in them days they wasn’t no time for moumin.’

Once my maw and paw taken me and Katherine after night to slip to ‘nother place

to a prayin’ and singin’. A [Black man] with white beard told us a day cornin’

when [Black people] only be slaves of Gawd. We prays for the end of trib’lation

and the end of beatin’s and for shoes that fir our feet. We pray that [we] could

have all we wanted to eat and special fresh meat. Some the old ones say we had to

bear all, ‘cause that all we can do. Some say they was glad to [wished for] the

time they’s dead, ’cause they’d rather rot in the ground than have the beatin’s.

What I hated the most was when they’d beat me and I didn’t know what they beat

me for, and I hated them strippin’ me naked as the day I was bom. (18-19)

The two accounts of the experiences of slavery, one by a woman who fled slavery, helped by the Underground Railroad, and the other by an elderly woman who lived several decades after slavery ended, provide preface to this literary review of Diaspora womanists of the past and present. Chapter 3. Womanists Activists

18th Century Womanists (century of birth) Lucy Terry bom 1733 Phyllis Wheatley bom 1753 Nancy Prosser born 1770 Jenna Lee born 1783 Elleanor Eldridge bom 1785 19th Century Womanists (century of birth) Maria W. Stewart bom 1803 Harriett Ross Tubman bom 1820 Francis Watkins Harper bom 1825 Sarah Parker Redmond born 1826 Charlotte Forten Grimke bom 1837 Cathay Williams bom 1844 Anna Julian Cooper bom 1858 Ida B. Wells bom 1862 Madame C. J. Walker bom 1867 20th Century Womanists (century of birth) Dorothy Irene Height, bom 1912 Fannie Lou Hammer, bom 1917 Shirley Chisholm, boml924 Nina Simone, bom 1933 Catherine Coleman Gobel Johnson bom 1918 Alicia Garza bom 1981 Misty Copeland bom 1982 21

18th Century Womanists

Lucy Terry

Bom (1733-1821) in Massachusetts, is the author of the earliest known poem written by an African American. She wrote “Bar’s Fight,” when she was sixteen years old. That poem, however, is of slight significance from a purely literary point of view. It records and Indian ambush of two white families an August 25, 1746 in a section of

Deerfield, Massachusetts, and was preserved by word of mouth by appreciative whites, and published in Josiah Holland’s History o f Western Massachusetts in 1855. It is not the poem however, that Lucy Terry is remembered with awe in the present study, for although Terry had grown up a slave in Deerfield, “Bar’s Fight” conveys genuine sympathy for the whites that died in the skirmish, despite the fact of their oppression of the Indians. Rather, Terry is remembered for her own battle with white oppression in

Deerfield and her courage in confronting it head on.

Bom in Africa, kidnapped as an infant, and sold into slavery in Rhode Island. In

1753 Terry was about five years old, she became the property of Ensign Ebenzer Wells of

Deerfield, Massachusetts. She was introduced to Christianity and became a member of the enslaver’s church in 1744. In 1756 she met Obijah Prince, a wealthy free Black man who brought her freedom and married her. The couple moved to Guilford, Vermont, 22

where Lucy’s reputation as a storyteller and strong defender of African American civil rights grew.

Like free Blacks of the period, she was determined to secure an education for her six children. Her oldest son applied for admission to Williams College, and when he was denied admission, Lucy went to Williamstown, Massachusetts, and delivered a three-hour argument to the college’s trustees against William’s policy of racial discrimination.

Though unsuccessful, she fought hard with courage. However she was successful in another challenge to white racism.

“According to her 1821 obituary, “the fluency of her speech captivated all around her”—and she had occasion to fight in defense of her family’s rights and property: In

1758, when a neighboring white family threatened the Princes, Lucy and Abijah appealed to the governor and his Council for protection. The Council ordered Guilford’s selectmen to defend them. Again later she defended her family when a Colonel Eli Bronson attempted to steal land owned by the Princes. This case went to the Supreme Court where

Terry argued against two of the leading lawyers in the state, one whom later became

Chief Justice of Vermont, and she won. The presiding justice of the court, Samuel Chase, said that her argue- ment was better than he’d heard from any Vermont Lawyer. After her husband’s death in 1794, she moved to Sunderland, Vermont, where she died in 1821, at the age of 97. (“People and Events: Lucy Terry”) 23

Phyllis Wheatley

Bom in Gambia (1753-1784), was one of the most well known poets in America during her day. Kidnapped when she was about seven years old, she survived the terror of being snatched from her parents and the atrocities of the middle passage. As documented by Katherine Bassard, Phyllis Wheatley’s mind was so alert that though a child she was able to discern her environments and navigate within them with courage and intelligence.

In Boston, she was purchased in 1761, by John Wheatley a prominent tailor, as an attendant to his wife.

The Wheatley family was so impressed with Phillis’ mind, that as an experiment they taught her to read and write. She learned English quickly, within sixteen months of her arrival in America she was reading from the Bible, Greek and Latin classics, astronomy, geography, history, and British literature. By the time she was a teenager she was already a gifted poet whom the Wheatley family was parading around Boston and eventually Europe, as though she was a curiosity for her brilliance.

Unable to get her poems published in Boston, the Wheatley’s turned to London for a publisher, with the result that in 1773 thirty-nine of Ms. Wheatley’s poems were published as Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. London: Printed for

Archibald Bell and sold in Boston by Cox and Berry, 1773. This collection is Phillis’ only book, and the first volume of poetry to be published by and African American. 24

Although her poetry, which reflects the religious and classical background of her New England education consisted of elegies, written on demand for the Wheatley family and their associates, and although later scholars would focus on those poems to the denial of her focus on race, she did address the horrors of slavery, notably in her long poem titled To The Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth. She met with William

Legge, the Earl of Dartmouth, when she was in England for the publication of her collected poems. He was a friend of the countess of Huntington, who was a supporter of

Wheatley’s work and a supporter of the abolishment of slavery. Hoping the Earl would share abolitionist sensibilities in the poem, she makes a frank personal appeal to him:

Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,

Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,

Whence flow these wishes, for the common good,

By feeling hearts alone best understood,

I, young in life by seeming cruel fate

Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat

What pangs excruciating must molest,

What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast

Steel’d was that soul and by no misery mov’d

That from a father seiz’d his babe belov’d:

Such, such my case. And can I then but pray 25

Others may feel tyranic sway?

For favors past, great Sir, our thanks are due,

And thee we ask they favours renew,

Since in they pow’r. as in thy will before,

To smooth the griefs, which thou did’st once deplore

May heav’nly grace the sacred sanction give

To all thy works, and thou forever live

Not only on the wings of a fleeting Fame,

Though praise immortal crowns the patriot’s name,

But to conduct to heav’ns refulgent fane,

May fiery courses sweep th’ ethereal plain,

And bear thee upwards to that blessed abode,

Where, like the prophet, thou shalt find thy God.

The emotional restraint of her neoclassical poetry is set-aside in this poem, and

Wheatley speaks directly to the point. 26

Nancy Prosser

Bom (1770-date of death unknown), Nancy was a leader along with her husband

Gabriel and his two brothers in a slave revolt. Thomas Prosser of Henrico County,

Virginia enslaved her. It was on his plantation that she recruited for the revolt set or

August 30,1800. Over one thousand men and women armed with scythes, guns, and makeshift weapons, were committed to do whatever was necessary for their freedom.

However as with so many planned revolts, such as that of Nat Turner and

Denmark Vesey, they were betrayed by fellow Blacks, crushing the revolt. Her husband

Gabriel was captured and publicly hanged as a warning to other enslaved Black people, to the delight of hedonistic white slavers. History does not find any record of her fate

(Tonya Bolden 16). 27

Jerena Lee

Jerena Lee was bom in Cape May, New Jersey (1783-1850) to free poor Black parents. Lee grew up to distinguish herself as a preacher within the African Methodist

Episcopal (AME) Church in a time when it was unthinkable for women to serve God as preachers. Initially denied the permission to preach by Richard Allen, founder of the

AME denomination, she eventually impressed him during her spontaneous exhortation as a visiting minister delivering a sermon.

Allen was said to be so moved that “he rose up in the assembly, and related that

[she] had called upon him eight years before, asking to be permitted to preach, and that he had put [her] off; but that he now as much believed that [she] was called to that work as any of the preachers present. (“Historical Document”).

Her church was wherever she found a space to worship: roadsides, camp meetings, and homes. She preached in Philadelphia, Ohio, and various other states in the mid-Atlantic and northeast states. Her autobiography, The Life and Religious Experiences ofJarena Lee, A Coloured Lady, Giving an Account of Her Call to Preach the Gospel, was one o f her tools o f evangelism, which she published in 1836. (Tonya Bolden 21). She joined the American Antislavery Society in 1838 (“Historical Document”). There is no known record of her death. 28

Elleanor Eldridge

Elleanor Eldridge (1785-1865) was born free in Warwick, Rhode Island. Her mother died when she was ten years old. Her father, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, raised her and her nine siblings. In her early teens she worked as a laundress to help her struggling father, earning twenty-five cents a week, which began to earn her a reputation of “Ingenuity and Industry” (Bolden 17). Her focus was the household, which included plain and double spinning and ornamental weaving. According to Bolden, Eldridge “took charge of the milk production. From 20-30 cows, she made four to five thousand pounds of cheese annually. Every year her cheese was distinguished as premium (17). An entrepreneur at age 20, she went into business with her sister in various venues, which included the soap boiling business and nursing. With another sister in Providence, she entered the white washing, papering, and painting business, which sustained her for another twenty years. In her lifetime she invested in property and was able to contribute to the lives of her family members. She serves as an example of Black Women entrepreneurs, of whom Madame C.J. Walker and Oprah Winfrey are further examples of what intelligent Black women can accomplish against the odds in America. 29

19th Century Womanists

Maria Stewart

Maria Stewart (1803-1879) is noted for her work of championing for her people.

Orphaned at the age of five, she was taken into the home of a clergyman’s family until the age of fifteen. In 1826 she married James W. Stewart, who was a shipping agent. He died three years into their marriage. Cheated out of the inheritance that he left her by the executors of his estate, she had to fen for herself. It was during this time that:

A prosperous clothing shop owner named David Walker, who was a well-

known, outspoken member of the General Colored Association, influenced

Stewart. Walker was identified as a leader within the African-American

enclave of Boston. In 1829, he wrote and published, David Walker’s

Appeal to the colored Citizens of the World. (Ashira Adowoa, African-

American: Texas Widest Circulated and Read Newspaper With a Black

Perspective)

Stewart also came to the attention of William Lloyd Garrison founder of abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, when he announced a call for women of Africa descent to contribute articles to his newspaper. Stewart’s first submission that Garrison published was titled “Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality. The Sure Foundation 30

on Which We Must Build.” According to Tanya Bolden, Stewart was “America’s first

Black woman political writer” (Bolden27)

Important to the present study, she was in the womanist tradition of working on behalf of the whole race, women and men:

She pleaded the cause of all her people, revealing that, like so many of her

nineteenth-century sisters, she understood that advocating th uplift of her

sisters without advocating the uplift of her brothers, was a fools politics.

(30)

In her own words Stewart urged, “Look at our young men, smart, active

and energetic, with soul filled with energetic fire; if they look forward,

alas! What are their prospects? Can they be nothing but the humblest

laborers, on account of their dark complexion; hence many of them lose

their ambition and become worthless (30).

Today, the largest group of intellectual scholars of womanism, are African- centered theologians. Stewart fits perfectly with this group of strongly religious women.

In addressing the Afric-American Female Society, in strong womanist message, she rallies Black women “with the survival and enrichment of the Black Community.” She tells the gathered women:

O woman, woman! Upon you I call; for your exertions almost

entirely depend on whether the rising generation shall be anything 31

more than we have been or not. O woman. O woman! Your example

is powerful, your influence great; it extends over husbands and over your

children, and throughout the circle of your acquaintance. (Patricia Liggins

Hill 397).

Clearly Stewart is of that tradition to which the young Black female students of the BSU at San Francisco State siring the strike of 1968, could find a role model. 32

Harriet Ross Tubman

Harriet Tubman (1820-1913) is perhaps the most well known of all the

Underground Railroad’s “conductors.” During a ten-year span she made 19 trips into the

South and escorted over three hundred people to freedom. Tubman was born enslaved in

Maryland’s Dorchester County around 1820. When she was a child of approximately age six, she was put to work in the house of the slave owners. As a preteen, she was forced to work in the fields. In her early teens she suffered a physical attack, from which she never recovered, and suffered spells for the rest of her life. It happened when “Tubman blocked a doorway to protect another field hand from an angry overseer. The overseer picked up and threw a two-pound weight at the field hand, which fell short striking Tubman on the head (People & Events: Harriet Tubman (http:/ww.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4pl535.htmlV

The various historical records of the time conclude that she rescued over 300 enslaved

Black people. Governor Andrew of Massachusetts would also recruit her help to serve as a spy and scout for the north. According to research done by Sarah Bradford:

Tubman has all the characteristics of the pure African race strongly

marked upon her, though which one of the various tribes that once fed the

Barracoons, on the Guinea Coast, she derived her indomitable courage and

her passionate love of freedom, I know not; perhaps from the Fellatas, in

whom those traits were predominant. (Bradford 9). 33

Ms Tubman is another example of a womanist forebear with whom later Black women share a legacy of activism.

Harriett was revered protector of not only the women and children, but also of the men fleeing slavery with her as rescuer. In one trip into the hell of slavery, she went to recue her own brothers. However, they understandably began to face the reality of recapture, even though they had left with her hoping to obtain freedom. They began to falter as they could hear hunters and dogs at their heels:

The brothers started with her, but the way was strange, the north was far

away, and all unknown, the masters would pursue and recapture them, and

their fate would be worse than ever before; and so they broke away from

her, and bidding her goodbye, they hastened back to the known horrors of

slavery, and the dread of that which was worse (28).

And on another rescue mission, she also experienced the sadness of seeing the men loose confidence that their lives could be spared by her valiant efforts:

The way was toilsome over rugged mountain passes, that often the men

who followed her would give out, and footsore, and bleeding, they would

drop on the ground, groaning that they could not take another step. They

would lie there and die, or if strength came back, they would turn on their

steps and seek their old homes again. Then the revolver carried by this

bold and daring pioneer, would come out, while pointing it at their heads 34

she would say “Dead [you] tell no tales; you go on or die!” And by this

heroic treatment she compelled them to drag weary limbs towards their

northward journey (33).

On one of her trips to the south the following occurred that serves to characterize the danger of her missions: At one time the pursuit was very close and vigorous. The woods was

scoured in in all directions, every house was visited, and every person

stopped and questioned as to a band of Black fugitives, known to be

fleeing through that part of the country. Harriet had a large party with her

then; the children were sleeping sound the sound sleep that opium gives;

but all the others were on the alert, each one hidden behind his own tree,

and silent as death. They had been long without food, and nearly

famished; and as the pursuers seemed to have passed on, Harriet decided

to make the attempt to reach a certain “station of the underground

railroad” well known to her, and procure food for her starving party

(Bradford, Sarah. Harriet Tubman The Moses of Her People. Gloucester,

Mass, 1981 Peter Smith 35).

Tubman, in the tradition of Black Women, saw what needed to be done and she acted on it. She responded to the “shrieks and cries of women who were being flogged in the Negro quarter; she had listened to the groaned out prayers, ‘Oh Lord, have mercy!’” 35

She internalized the grief of all enslaved people, and declared, “Why should such things be, is there no deliverance for my people?” And it came to her that God choose her for the work she went on to do (Bradford 15-16). 36

Frances Watkins Harper

Frances Watkins Harper (1825-1911) though, bom free to financially confortable middle-class parents, her life was dedicated to the cause of enslaved Black people fleeing slavery. Her poetry, such as the “Slave Auction,” “The Slave Mother,” “Bury Me in a

Free Land,” bring graphic sensory depiction to the suffering of the enslaved at the whim of the inhumane enslavers. Her novel ”Iola Leroy, ” is about the life of a self-reliant

Black woman who upon the end of slavery sets out to find her family. The novel’s heroine, Iola LeRoy, although of “mixed race,” and visually confusing to others who mistook her to be all white, is proudly Black in her respect of herself, and her African-

Centeredness. In this, the story reads like an autobiography of Francis W. Harper herself.

She worked as an abolitionist in the North, and spoke out against the physical abuse of

Black people, the violations of voting privileges, and the lack of educational facilities

(Hill 364).

Although she was of the Unitarian religious denomination, Harper was active in many activities of the AME church, “and a regular contributor to the A.M.E. Church

Review. “Harper also wrote essays. Among the most referenced are “Christianity’ (1853) and ‘The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union’ and ‘The Colored Woman” (1888)

(Bolden) 52. According to Hill, “More than any other Black woman activist of the nineteenth century, Francis Harper has a rare sense of historical timing that told her when certain positions on issues had to be reassessed, negotiated, or modified.” Moreover, Hills 37

insists, “It was this mental faculty that kept her remarkably in tuned with the fast-paced events and major freedom movements of the tumultuous era. It was her astute reading of the subtle nuances of race, gender, and class, and her wise critical judgments that made her a significant agent in the balance of political power” (349).

Two of Harper’s poems are selected here to demonstrate how her advocacy on behalf of Black people, was brought graphically to readers today to understand the horrors of the past:

The Slave Auction

The sale began—young girls were there,

Defenseless in their wretchedness,

Whose stifled sobs of deep despair

Revealed their anguish and distress.

And mothers stood, with streaming eyes,

And saw their dearest children sold;

Unheeded rose their bitter cries,

While tyrants bartered them for gold.

And woman, with her love and truth—

For these in sable forms may dwell— 38

And the second Harper poem selected as example of he advocacy work through poetry is:

Sketches of Southern Life: Learning to Read

Very soon the Yankee teachers

Came down and set up school;

But, oh! How the Rebs did hate it,—

It was agin’ their rule.

Our masters always tried to hide

Book learning from our eyes;

Knowledge didn’t agree with slavery—

‘Twould make us all too wise.

But some of us would try to steal

A little from a book,

And put the words together,

And learn by hook or crook.

I remember Uncle Caldwell

Who took pot liquor fat

And greased the pages of his book,

And hid it in his hat. 39

Sarah Parker Redmond

Sarah Parker Redmond (1826-1894) was bom free in Salem, Massachusetts. She was raised in a family of committed activists, fighting slavery at every turn. Her father was the successful owner of a catering and hairdressing business. As a life member of the

Anti-Slavery Society, he brought his entire family into the movement on behalf of Black

People. The Redmond children were brought up to defend themselves and fellow Black

People against wrongs.

In 1853, Redmond was forcibly removed and pushed down a flight of stairs at the

Howard Athenaeum in Boston where she had gone to attend the opera Don Pasquale, for which she had purchased a ticket. This incident stemmed from her refusal to sit in a segregated section for the show. She was physically removed from the theater by a policeman, and in the process she fell down the stairs. For this humiliation, she sued, and was awarded $500 in damages. The victory speaks more in volume to her resolve to fight back than in the amount of the monetary settlement.

As an African American she is distinguished for moving beyond the United States as an abolitionist, to take the cause of enslaved people to Europe to gamer support for ending the practice of slavery in America:

During the Civil War, Redmond knew that Lincoln and the Union needed British diplomatic support. Hence, she delivered in 1862 an important address entitled, 40

’’The Negro in the United Stated of America,” before an influential London audience, the

International Congress of Charities Correction, and Philanthropy. Eloquently she pleaded,

‘Let no diplomacy of statesman, no intimidation of slaveholders, no scarcity of cotton, no fear of slave insurrections, prevent the people of Great Britain from maintaining their position as the friend of the oppressed Negro.” (Hill 414-415)

While traveling in Europe, Redmond found there somewhat relief from the terrible life Black people suffered in America.

By 1868 she settled in Italy and completed some form of medical training.

Although subsequent records of her life remain scarce, she was last seen by Frederick

Douglass, who while visiting Italy in 1886 Douglas encountered Redmond and two of her sisters, who chose exile in Italy over life in the United States. On December 13, 1984,

Sarah Parker Redmond died of undisclosed causes. She is buried in the Protestant

Cemetery in Rome (“Redmond, Sarah Parker. (1824-1894)

Black Past: Remembered and reclaimed. http://www .blackpast.org/?q-aah/redmond-sarah-parker-(1824-1894) 41

Charlotte Forten Grimke

Charlotte Grimke (1837-1914) is known for the journal she began writing as a teenager, that recorded the outrage she felt in the face of the Fugitive Slave Law, that encouraged the north to capture and return to slavery in the south, the enslaved people who managed to escape. She was bom free into one of the most, wealthy Black families in Philadelphia. Her grandfather, James Forten acquired his vast wealth as a sail maker.

He and her father put much of their wealth into helping Blacks fleeing slavery get to

Canada and set up life there. Thus she grew up in such a family and embraced the community “give back” spirit, which today many people simply give lip service to. Her journal entries bring witness to her concern for the fate of Black people seeking justice, as the following selections reveal:

Thursday, May 25, 1854. Did not intend to write this evening, but have

just something that is worth recording—something which, must ever

rouse in the mind of every true friend of liberty and humanity, feelings

of the deepest sorrow. Another fugitive from bondage has been arrested; a

poor man, who for two months, has trod the soil and breathe the air of the

‘Old Bay State’, was arrested like a criminal in the streets of her capital,

and is now kept strictly guarded—a double police force is required, the

military readiness; an all this is done to prevent a man, whom God has

created in his own image, from gaining that freedom with which, he, in 42

common with every other human being, is endowed. I can only hope and pray most earnestly that Boston will not again disgrace herself by sending him back to a bondage worse than death; or rather that she will redeem herself from the disgrace which this arrest alone has brought upon her...

Friday, June 2, 1854. Our worse fears are realized; the decision was against poor Bums, and he was sent back to a bondage worse, a thousand times worse than death. Even an attempt at rescue was utterly impossible; the prisoner was completely surrounded by soldiers with bayonets fixed, a cannon loaded, ready to be fired at the slightest sign. Today Massachusetts has again been disgraced; again she shewed her submission to the Slave

Power; and Oh! What deep sorrow do we think of will doubtless be the fate of that poor man, when he again consigned to the horrors of slavery.

With what scorn must that government be regarded, which cowardly assembles thousands of soldiers to satisfy the demands of slaveholders; to deprive of his freedom a man created in God’s own image, whose sole offense is the color of his skin! And if resistance is offered to this outrage these soldiers are to shoot down American citizens without mercy; and this by the express orders of a government, which proudly boasts of freeest [sic] in the world; this on the very soil where the Revolution of

1776 began; insight of the battlefield, where thousands of brave men 43

fought and died in opposing British tyranny, which was nothing compared

with the American oppression today.

The young womanist final thought’s in this day’s entry, ends with:

“I can write no more. A cloud seems hanging over me, over all our

persecuted race, which nothing can dispel” (8). 44

Cathay Williams

Cathay Williams (1844-death unrecorded) was bom a slave in Independence,

Missouri. Williams was known as the first African American woman to enlist and serve in the United States army, during the period when Black soldiers were commonly called

“Buffalo Soldiers”. Slaves were often considered contraband, and once captured, they were oftentimes forced to work for the military. In 1861 when the Civil War began,

Cathay at the age of 17, worked for the military as a domestic worker; cooking and washing for army personnel as they traveled throughout the southern states.

When the civil war ceased, Williams and countless African Americans in the south were significantly unemployed, uneducated and homeless. The military, in many instances was the only viable solution offering a steady paycheck, healthcare, education and a pension. Women were not allowed to join the military, however, Williams was not daunted by the attitudes of the day. Despite the strenuous physical work of a soldier and her health issues she was not discouraged. Following the womanist tradition, she used her

5’9” statue advantageously to take on the disguise of a man. She interchanged her first and last names to William Cathay and successfully enlisted, and was assigned to

Company A of the 38 th infantry where she served her country for almost 2 years.

Inevitably the post surgeon discovered her identity:

“The post surgeon found out I was a woman and I got discharged. The

men all wanted to get rid of me after they found out I was a woman. Some 45

of them acted real mean.” (Muslim Journal Vol. 42, No. 27 March 24,

2017)

Following her discharge from the army Cathay resumed using her birth name. She married briefly and traveled extensively in the south taking on odd jobs as a seamstress, laundress, and cook. With her health continuously failing, she suffered from various unknown ailments along with diabetes, which resulted in several toes being amputated.

Now, disabled she applied for a disability pension for her military service, and was denied compensation. Several white women were known to have received their pensions with lesser or no disability. 46

Anna Julia Cooper Anna Julia Cooper (1858-1964) lived from the period of slavery to the era of the civil rights/Black Liberation Movement. She was bom in Raleigh, North Carolina was the eldest of two daughters born to an enslaved Black woman, Hannah Stanley and George

Washington Haywood the white owner. (Rashidi, 2002). According to Rashidi “Cooper possessed an unrelenting passion for learning and a sincere conviction that Black women were equipped to follow intellectual pursuits" (on-line). At age seven, Cooper enrolled in a teacher’s training program at St. Augustine’s Normal School and Collegiate Institute. In

1877, she graduated to the teacher’s level and married George C. Cooper, also a former slave: her husband died two years later. In her edited book, The World’s Congress of

Representative Women, May Wright Sewell brings well-earned attention to Cooper’s life and work.

Cooper’s book A Voice from the South by a Black Woman o f the South, was an early work by an African-centered womanist. The book is a well-known study on Black women’s influence on race and gender. She advances the position that Black American women are the moral and spiritual center of the Black community

(Hill 639). In her speech “Remarks Before the 1893 World’s Congress of Representative

Women on the Status of Black Women in the United States, she argues:

The higher the fruits of civilization cannot be extemporized, neither can

they be developed normally, in the brief space of thirty years. It requires 47

the long and painful growth of generations. Yet all through the darkest

period of the colored women’s oppression in this country, her unwritten

history is full of heroic struggle, a struggle against fearful and

overwhelming odds that often ended in a horrible death - to maintain and

protect that which holds dearer than life. (Hill 649)

Nevertheless, she continued that the African American woman “maintained ideals of womanhood unashamed by any ever conceived.” Cooper is a model of a womanist activist when she says:

“I speak for the colored women of the South, because... millions of Blacks in this country have watered the soil with blood and tears, and it is there too that the colored woman...has made her characteristic history” (Hill 649). 48

Ida B. Wells Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was bom in Holly Springs, Mississippi, during the Civil

War in the United States. A fearless anti-lynching crusader, she was one of the greatest

African American political journalist, and an uncompromising womanist activist. As editor and co-owner of a local Black newspaper called “The Memphis Free Speech” she wrote under the pen name “Iola.”

In 1892, Wells spoke at a conference of Black women’s clubs, who donated $500 to her work investigating lynching and publishing her findings, particularly of the fraudulent charges used to lynch Black men. According to her book, Crusade for Justice:

The Autobiography o f Ida B. Wells. Wells found out that Black Men were being hung, shot burned to death for such excuses as being in debt, showing disrespect for whites, testifying in court, stealing hogs, and public drunkenness. Her findings were published in a pamphlet entitled Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in all Phases. Wells however, discovered the fact that in these “rape” cases there was evidence of a consensual relationship between Black men and white women. Well’s bringing attention to white women’s fascination for Black men caused white outrage. A mob destroyed the office of her newspaper and threatened to kill her. Wells was speaking in Philadelphia at the time and was therefore not able to return to her home. She settled in Chicago where she continued her anti-lynching campaign. Thereafter the New York Age: Afro-American

Journal o f News and Opinion, began printing her articles and Wells went on a lecturing 49

continued her anti-lynching campaign. Thereafter the New York Age: Afro-American

Journal o f News and Opinion, began printing her articles and Wells went on a lecturing tour, throughout the northeast, arousing action against the unchecked lynching of Black men. 50

Madame C. J. Walker

Madame C.J. Walker (1867- 1919) bom Sarah Breedlove, was the last of 5 children, and the only one not bom a slave. Her parents would often boost: In Her Own

Ground, New York. Scriber 2001

“[She] was bom free just a few days shy of the Emancipation

Proclamation’s fifth anniversary.” (25)

Both parents died during her early childhood. Years later she tells audiences:

“I had little or no opportunity when I started out in life,

having been left an orphan and being without mother or

father since I was seven years of age.”(34)

Thus began Sarah’s downward spiral into hunger, violence and hardship, in the home of an older sister and her abusive brother-in-law Mr. Jesse Powell, who considered her a financial burden. He released his frustrations by beating her, a secret she did not reveal to her sister, for fear of retaliation and becoming homeless. To escape the wrath and lustful eye of her sister’s husband, she decided to marry, and became the common law bride to Mr. Moses McWilliams:

“to get a home of my own”(40) at the tender age of 14. The joyous birth of her only child, Lelia, was soon followed by the tragic, unexplained death of Moses. The young widow, determined not to allow her only child to grow up in abject poverty as she had done, alone now, she drew on inner 51

strength-the womanist spirit of past generations of black women, to create a better life for

herself and her young child. Limited skills and education forced the teen mother into the

only occupation dominated by black women and abhorred by white women. She became

a washerwoman, and the best known in her region, turning the business into a lucrative

enterprise. After the death of Moses, Sarah and Leila joined the migration North with

200,000 mothers, young and old black men searching for better opportunities.

Washerwomen were often found bent over a tub of dirty clothes, in shabby dress

and a rag (scarf) tied around their heads. Their heads were covered partly because:

“even as a child Sarah noticed the value that was placed

on hair texture and skin color. As a woman with African

features, she frequently was reminded that white skin

and shiny, straight hair were more prized than black skin

and coiled, kinky hair.” (62)

The texture of Sarah’s hair, and a chronic scalp condition triggering baldness forced her into covering her head at all times. Determined to find a solution for her itchy, bleeding scalp, she experimented and created formulas in her kitchen to alleviate her problem. Sarah often told people:

“ I was on the verge of becoming entirely bald... she “prayed

to the Lord for guidance. “He answered my prayer, for one

night I had a dream, and in that dream a big black man appeared 52

to me and told me what to mix for my hair. Some of the remedy

was from Africa, but I sent for it, mixed it put it on my scalp and

in a few weeks my hair was coming in faster than it was coming

out.” (60)

She also created products that altered the texture of Black Women’s racialized hair.

At the turn of the century, a woman was considered beautiful if she was light skinned and

had long flowing straight hair, neither of which Sarah had at her disposal.

“...no matter how beautiful, how well groomed, how stylish she

have managed to make herself, Sarah would never meet America’s

standard of beauty.” (63)

Sarah remarried years later, to Charles Joseph Walker, known as CJ by his friends. A natural bom salesman of medium built, CJ impressed Sarah with a level of ambition that matched hers. He was a “yellow guy,” known to wear fancy suits, and shoes that were well shined. Sarah equally impressed CJ with her business sawy and her drive to succeed. Charles’ background in print advertisement helped launch her product line. He was instrumental in encouraging her to change her brand name to, “Madame CJ Walker.”

Madame Walker overcame insurmountable obstacles going from a washerwoman to entrepreneur, philanthropist and self-made millionaire, as well as civil rights activist, all during a period in American history when Black Women were marginalized, and not expected to conceptualize, not to mention, own or operate a multi-million dollar company. 20th Century Womanists

Dorothy Irene Height

Dorothy Irene Height (1912-2010) educator and social activist, was accepted as a freshman to Barnard College in 1929. The day she appeared to register for classes, she was not allowed to because “ the university had an unwritten policy of admitting only two Negro students per year.” ( www.Wikipedia.org Dorothy Height) In the Womanist tradition, she continued on her path moving forward, getting an undergraduate and

Master’s Degree from New York University. Her career as a civil rights activist began at the age of 25 as a caseworker fighting for equality for women and African Americans.

During her lifetime, she held many national positions, in 1957 she was elected president of the National Council of Negro Women, a position she held for forty years.

Ms Heights’ role during Civil Rights Era was not evident in the media. Her work was typically ignored due to sexism. James Farmer stated in his autobiography that:

“Height was one of the Big Six of the Civil Rights Movement.’’(online)

The Big Six of the movement refers to John Lewis, Whitney Young Jr. A Phillip

Randolph, Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer Jr., and Roy Wilkins. She worked with these men fighting racism and inequality. She was well known as a leader, and many dignitaries sought her advice. Eleanor Roosevelt sought her counsel on issues pertaining to black women, she advised President Eisenhower on desegregation of schools. 55

President Johnson also sought her advice in the hiring of African-American women for government positions.

Dorothy held many prominent positions in civic organizations, though she never married or had children. She:

was chair person of the Executive Committee of the Leadership

Conference on Civil Rights, the largest civil right’s for women’s

rights organization in the USA. She was an honored guest at the

inauguration of President Barack Obama on January 20, 2009, and was

seated on stage. (On line)

Ms Height was recognized by Bernard College for her achievements, 75 years after she was barred from admission. She died at 98. 56

Fannie Lou Hamer Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) is affectionately known as the woman who philosophically exclaimed, “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” Kay Mills, in

This little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer, covers Hamer’s life, through the civil rights movement in Mississippi, focusing on Hamer’s significance as a towering figure, nationally recognized and nationally active, while yet a grassroots woman of the people. Mills theorizes that Hamer symbolized that very grassroots aspect of the movement, as she was both figuratively and literally of the very people most in need of freedom. Bom in Montgomery County, Mississippi, Fannie’s grandparents were enslaved and she grew with their memories passed on to her. Of her nineteen siblings, she was the youngest. Capable womanist is given meaning by her life.

In 1962, when Hamer was 44 years old, SNCC volunteers went to Mississippi and held a voter registration meeting, and to her surprise she learned that Black Americans had a constitutional right to vote (Mills, Kay (1993). This Little Light o f Mine: The Life of

Fannie Lou Hamer. New York: Dutton. She readily signed on when SNCC members asked for volunteers to go to the courthouse to register to vote. Reflecting on what she would later call her dangerous decision, she concluded, “The only thing they could do to me was to kill me, and it seemed like they’d been trying to do that a little bit at a time ever since I could remember” (Mills, Kay (1993). This Little Light o f Mine: The Life of 57

Fannie Lou Hamer. New York: Dutton. Along with other volunteers, she was jailed and beaten by the police. She was also put off the plantation where she was a sharecropper.

The death threats she got did not discourage her commitment, as being a risk taker is characteristic of African-centered womanists.

Hamer traveled around the country, speaking and registering people to vote, in her position as Field Secretary for SNCC. She went on and co-founded the Mississippi

Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). In 1964, the MFDP challenged the all-white

Mississippi delegation to the Democratic National Convention; Hamer spoke in front of the Credentials Committee in a televised proceeding that reached millions of viewers.

She fearlessly presented the facts—that African-Americans in many states were prevented from voting through illegal tests, taxes and intimidation. As a result of her speech, two delegates of the MFDP were given speaking rights at the convention and the other members were seated as honorable guests. Hamer proved a strong activist, successful in getting many people involved in the struggle for civil rights. She died on March 14, 1977, at the age of 59. 58

Shirley Chisholm

Shirley Chisholm (1924-2005) bom in Brooklyn, New York became politically active with the Democratic Party and quickly developed a reputation for championing the cause of African Americans and the poor. After a successful career as an elementary school teacher she entered politics. In 1964 she was elected to the New York State Assembly. In that capacity she sponsored fifty bills, but only one of the bills she supported provided assistance for poor students to go on to higher education. Another provided employment insurance coverage for personal and domestic employees. Still another bill reversed a law that caused female teachers in New York to lose their tenure (permanence of position) while they were out on maternity leave.

Chisholm became the first Black woman in 1968 when she elected to serve in the

U.S. House of Representatives. An advocate of women’s rights, she was of the position that

Black women, especially, had been pushed into stereotypical roles, or conventional professions, such as maids and nannies. Her women’s liberation views made Chisholm a popular speaker on college campuses.

In 1972 Chisholm ran for President of the United States of America (Chisholm,

Shirley. Unbought and Unbossed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970). During her campaign she spoke out about civil rights, the judicial system in the United States, police brutality, prison reform gun control, drug abuse, and numerous other topics that, are still discussed today, twelve years following her death. 59

After her unsuccessful presidential campaign, Shirley continued to serve in the U.S.

House of Representatives for another decade. As a member of the Black Caucus (a group of lawmakers who represent African Americans) she was able to watch black representation in

Congress grow and welcome other black congresswomen. In 1982, she announced her retirement from Congress and went on to serve as Purington Professor at Mt. Holyoke

College in Massachusetts, where she taught politics and women’s studies. In 1984 she co­ founded the National Political Congress of Black Women and in 1985 she was a visiting scholar at Spelman College, a historically Black college. She is remembered for being the first Black person to run for president, and the first Black woman to be elected to serve in

Congress. 60

Nina Simone

Nina Simone (1933-2003), bom Eunice Kathleen Waymon was an American singer/songwriter, pianist and civil rights activist who put her talent as a singer of jazz, blues, soul, folk, R&B to activism against racial oppression against Black people. She was affectionately known as The High Priestess of Soul.

On her album Nina Simone in Concert in 1964, she sang the song “Mississippi

Goddam,” where she publically addressed racial inequality in the United States. The song was written following the death of Medgar Evers and the bombing of a church in

Birmingham, Alabama that killed four, school aged Black girls. The song was boycotted in several southern states.

In the song “Old Jim Crow ”, on the same album, she protested Jim Crow Laws.

From this point onward, the main theme of Simone’s repertoire focused on protesting against racism. She performed and spoke at many civil rights meetings, such as the Selma to

Montgomery marches. Simone advocated violent revolution during the civil rights period, in contrast to Martin Luther King’s non-violet ideology.

On the cover of Pastel Blues (1965), she featured Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit,” a song about the lynching of Black men in the South. She also sang the W. Cuney poem,

“Images ” on Let itAll Out (1966), to remind Black women of their beauty and worthiness in the face of America’s attempts t undermine their sense of self-worth, which is still prevalent 61

today. Simone wrote and performed “Four Women, ” to bring attention to the various ways

Black women have struggled against oppression, often at their own human expense.

• The first of the four women is “Aunt Sarah” who represents African American

enslavement. She has to be strong enough to take pain and deal with the long­

term suffering her race has had to endure, “inflicted again and again”.

• The second woman in the song is “Safronia”, who is of Black and white

heritage, and lives “between two worlds.” She is an oppressed woman and her

story highlights the plight of the black race at the hands of white people in

positions of power, “My father is rich and white, he forced my mother late one

night”.

• The third woman is referred to as “Sweet Thing.” She finds acceptance with

both Black and white people, and sings “my hair is fine.” Unfortunately, she

provides sexual gratification, “Whose little girl am I? Anyone who has money to

buy”.

• The fourth woman is justifiably angry because of the oppression and suffering

endured by her people, “I’m awfully bitter these days, ‘cause my parents were

slaves”. She is fed up with the many crimes against her race. Simone sings, “My

name is Peaches!” 62

Nina settled in south of France after becoming frustrated with the music scene and race relations in America. She died at the age of 70 in 2003. 63

Katherine Coleman Goble Johnson

Katherine Johnson (1918—■), mathematician, astrophysicist and space scientist was the youngest of four children bom to Joshua and Joylette Coleman in White Sulphur

Springs, Greenbrier County, West Virginia. She was fascinated by numbers and exhibited an extraordinary gift for learning at a very early age.

“I counted everything. I counted the steps to the road,

the steps up to church, the number of dishes and silver­

ware I washed.. .anything that could be counted I did.”

(Online, Katherine Johnson: The Girl who Loved to Count)

The practice of racism in West Virginia at the time, did not allow African Americans to attend school past the 8th grade, albeit Katherine completed it at the tender age of 10.

Determined that his children would succeed in getting a higher education, Mr. Johnson relocated his family 120 miles to Institute, West Virginia, where young Katherine graduated from high school at the age of 14. In 1937 she graduated summa cum laude with degrees in

Mathematics and French from West Virginia State College (now University) at age 18, and went on to teach math and French at Black public schools in Virginia.

“I took every single math course the university had to offer.”

(Online, Katherine Johnson: The Girl who Loved to Count) 64

Her career in aeronautics began in 1952, when she landed her first job as a

“computer” (a name given to the Black women who worked in this department), with the

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, (NACA). It was later renamed, National

Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Katherine’s career escalated when NASA focused upon Alan Shepard’s 1961 journey into space. She stated:

“The early trajectory was a parabola, and it was easy to predict

where it would be at any point. Early on when they said they

wanted the capsule to come down at a certain place, they were

were trying to compute when it should start.”

In the womanist tradition she stated...

“Let me do it. You tell me when you want it and where you want

it to land, and I’ll do it backwards and tell you when to take off.”

(biograph.com/people/Katherine-g-johnson-101016)

Johnson continued to use her skills in mathematics while enduring racism and segregation within an environment that was dominated by white male engineers. Her next endeavor which proved to be a bit more challenging and rewarding was to send a man in space to orbit the earth, notably, the American John Glenn. During this period in time, space calculations were made by the new electronic digital computers however; Mr. Glenn adamantly refused to fly on the mission in 1962, before requesting that Katherine 65

specifically verify the calculations. Although the electronic computers were quite favorable at NASA, Katherine’s accuracy in computing was held in the highest esteem.

Johnson continued her work in 1969 calculating the trajectory for the 1969 Apollo

11 flight to the moon. In 1970 she worked on the aborted Apollo 13 moon space mission, making it possible for the crew’s safe return back to earth. She later worked on the Space

Shuttle program and the Earth Resources Satellite until she retired in 1986.

Little was known about this brilliant woman until her life was recorded in the film

“Hidden Figures” starring Taraji P. Henson as Johnson. She has received numerous awards such as the 1967 NASA Lunar Orbiter Spacecraft and Operations team award. Also to her credit is the National Technical Association’s designation as it’s 1997 Mathematician of the

Year. Additionally, President Barack Obama awarded her the highest award a civilian can receive, The Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. A new 40,000 square-foot building was named Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility in Hampton, Virginia.

(Online)

On one occasion, Ms. Johnson’s mother warned her about the difficulties she would face as an African American moving to a certain area in Virginia, a true womanist, she replied:

“Well tell them I’m coming...” 66

Alicia Garza Activist, Alicia Garza (1981- ) along with Opal Tometi and Parisse Cullors, are credited with co-founding the Black Lives Matter movement with chapters across the

United States. Frustrated with the senseless police killings of black people, the brutal killing of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of killer, George Zimmerman, provoked

Garza to create the slogan, #Black Lives Matter, as she reflected on her younger brothers’ possibility of losing his life by a trigger-happy policeman.

Garza, an editorial writer has been published in The Guardian, The Nation, and

Rolling Stone Magazine. Currently she is involved with the National Domestic Workers

Alliance. In 2015 she led the Freedom Ride to Ferguson, lunching the black lives matter movement. She participated in the attempt to stop a BART train for four in a half hours, reflecting the time that 18 year old Michael Brown’s body lay in the street after he was brutally gunned down by policeman, in Ferguson, Missouri, August 9,2014. She is active in several Bay Area social movement groups, and along with Cullors and Tometi, received the Sydney Peace Prize, amongst other awards and recognition. She continues her fight against racism and inequality and those living on the margins of society. 67

Misty Copeland

Misty Copeland (1982- ) has the distinction of being the first African American woman to become a principle dancer with the world renowned American Ballet Theater

(ABT) of New York, in it’s 75 years of existence. Bom September 10, in Kansas City,

Missouri, the fourth of six children, her childhood was tumultuous. Her mother moved the family quite often, oftentimes living in cramped hotel rooms with her various husbands and boyfriends; some who were known to be abusive to mother and children alike, often hurling expletives about their mixed heritage. She states:

“I was once a little girl searching for my voice. Quite scared, unique,

yet, alive and vibrant. I struggled, caught among five siblings, desperate to

be noticed. I never felt 1 fit in anywhere. Not even at

home surrounded by my family. My discovery of movement be­

came my saving grace. When I was introduced to ballet, it was

like finding the missing piece to my puzzle. I danced my worries

and fears away.” (Online)

Early on, in pursuing her passion, Misty found that the notions of a Black ballerina were problematic. She was marginalized due to her biracial skin color, and common attributes found amongst African Americans; particularly her flat feet and generous breasts, along with a pronounced butt. She began studying dance at 13, an age that was considered a late start within the ballerina world. However, her gift of effortlessly 68

memorizing dance routines, hard work and determination, propelled her rapidly to the top of her game. She soon became known as an up-and coming performer, with lead roles in productions like Debbie Allen’s, “The Chocolate Nutcracker”, and charity events presented by Angela Basset and other notable entertainers.

At 15, Misty became the subject of a nationally known legal battle between her mother and her dance instructor, Cynthia Bradley who become her guardian, moved her in with her family providing the child prodigy a stimulating environment to allow total concentration on her craft. After months of court proceedings instigated by her mother demanding her return home, Misty opted out of emancipation and eventually returned home with police escorts to continue her love of dance.

In the tradition of a womanist, Misty accepted the challenges that lay ahead, withstanding multiple injuries and setbacks. At the beginning of her ABT career, Misty suffered an injury requiring her to wear a brace for months.

She continues to be an inspiration to little brown girls, encouraging them to love their bodies, and pursue their dreams as she did to become a ballerina. 69

Chapter 4. Interview of Women of the 1968 Black Student Union Black Women of the Strike I included the following interview which was conducted during the February 2008

Conference at San Francisco State University, featuring Black Women from the

Vanguard of the 1968 Strike, myself included. The women involved in the strike were the epitomy of the term “womanist”- committed to the survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female, as were their counterparts of the 18,h, 19\ and 20“ centuries.

Historically, Black women have constantly fought aginst racism, oppression and inequality, alongside the Black man and oftentimes without him, as Harriett Tubman so eloquently illustrates in this study (pg 32). Women of the BSU were not silent, passive beings as they were portrayed by the “fake” media. They were focused diligent workers; some of them exposed to activism, long before they entered State. Women, Black women in particular, have always had a reputation as fighters for their home and families, as well as for the entire race. Maria Stewart (pg 29), in the late 1800’s, discourged by the conditions of young Black men in her day, admonished Black women when she said, “O, woman, woman! Upon you I call: for your exertions almost entirely depend on wheather the rising generation shall be anything more than we have been or not. O woman, woman! Your example is powerful, your influence great; it extends over your husbands and over your children, and throughout the circle of your acquiantanceI say this to all

Black women, we have our assignment, it was given to us many, many years ago! 70

Interview with Dhameera Ahmad

Jessica Hamilton and Dhameera Ahmad

Frequently, when we think about the Civil Rights and Black Power eras, we think of their many leaders. Often, names such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer,

Huey P. Newton, A. Philip Randolph pop into our heads. The stories of these leaders have been written down in many a history book, taught in schools, and retold religiously every February. However, the significant level of influence that students and other youth have had in successfully bringing about change is often forgotten. A quintessential example of the powerful role that students have played in 'the struggle' was the San

Francisco State Strike of 1968. In honor of the 40th anniversary of the '68 strike, I was granted the opportunity to interview Dhameera Ahmad. 71

Dhameera Ahmad was already a full-blown activist by the time she reached San

Francisco State College (now University) in 1968. She had been a member of the Black

Panther Party and involved in the community. After the strike, she assisted in developing the curriculum for the Black Studies Department. Ms. Ahmad is currently the principal at

Burckhalter Elementary School in Oakland, CA.

ASJ: I would like to thank you so much for granting me this interview.

Dhameera Ahmad: (Smiles)

ASJ: What year did you come to San Francisco State College?

Dhameera Ahmad: Lets see, my first semester was in fall 1968. ASJ: Please share with me what motivated you to become involved in the Black Student Union. Dhameera Ahmad: I was already an activist. I was an activist in high school so I knew many of the leaders there either through social relationships or through the Panther Party.

At that time it was kind of seamless. If you were in the community or in the Party, people in the neighborhood would go up to the campus to hear various activists speak or when they would have cultural programs. You would also see college students in the community when something was going on. So it was just like the next thing to do. I certainly didn't want to go work for the phone company. I didn't want to do anything.

(Laughs). So it was just something that was. And I loved learning and the students were so smart. Oh my gosh! I can't believe how incredibly global and well-rounded people 72

were in terms of looking at international affairs. They were reading Wretched of the

Earth. I was 18 and I wanted to be cool and that's where coolness was.

ASJ: How long were you a member of the Black Panther Party prior to going to State?

How did you get involved with them?

Dhameera Ahmad: Well, as it goes with women, not all, but many, I met someone. On our first date, we went to go work with Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver in order to help on the newspaper because Huey had just been shot. That was in '67.1 stayed affiliated with the Panthers for several years after that. I think the birth of my daughter ended that era of my life.

ASJ: During the strike, what was your most memorable experience?

Dhameera Ahmad: Running from the police who were on horses. Just looking at the advantage they had, the reality of knowing that armed people, armed White men, on horses, would chase you. I didn't necessarily feel like a child but I did feel like I should be safe on a college campus. I should be able to say what I wanted to say, do what I wanted to do. We felt like we were right! Just like eveiy generation feels like they're right. I remember that. I also remember just having time to think, time to mentally grow. Time to challenge ideas from Marxism to socialism and looking at different models of what a society could look like.

I remember that. And I remember the cafeteria; we used to get these French fries that were just delicious! (Shared, Laughter). After being in high school, to get to college and your last 73

class is at 12:30 in the afternoon and you have the whole day, was great. I was a worker. I started working the day I was sixteen. I worked at the Emporium in San Francisco. I was a high school working student. I don't know anybody who worked as much as I did. I worked in the summers, I worked after school, and on holidays. So I got the needed money, though much of it was loans, and I was able to get out of class by 12:30, and have time with all of these cool people. I remember that.

ASJ: Yeah, I feel you on that. So after the strike did you remain politically and socially

active?

Dhameera Ahmad: I did. After the strike, people went this way and that way. Some

people were in jail, some people transferred out of school. I don't really remember knowing

where people went, but they weren't really around. And being the worker that I was, I had

formed a relationship with Dr. Nathan Hare, and he had just published the first issue of the

Black Scholar. I was stuffing the envelopes and putting the stamps on them, and I

remember being really excited about the publication. But, someone had to do the work

about putting the department together. So a group of us worked eveiy day that summer of

'69 to do the particulars in order to open up the department. I stayed connected from that

standpoint. There were all kinds of things going on with the Party, horrible things going on.

There were lots of things falling apart. When that era is occurring, there is a lot of paranoia,

distrust, and so on. I was kind of an in and out person. I didn't get seriously back into school 74

until my daughter was coming and bom. And that's when I realized that I got to get this

together.

ASJ: You said that you were assisting in creating the curriculum for the department.

Were there any key elements that you felt were really important to incorporate into the

Black Studies Department?

Dhameera Ahmad: Well, we were really sold that it would not be just a part of the

academy, that it was going to have a community base. So, whomever we were going to

consider had to have the same values. They had to have a community base. If you look at

some of the old documents, I wish I could find some actually, but if you look at some of the

first faculty members, you will see that they had some pretty outstanding backgrounds.

They were very bright people who had a sense of a community base. They had a practicum

to their theory, as well as being very conscious as Black people. So that was one. We

probably wanted some loyalties to our own ideas and people who were in charge, or

thought they were in charge.

ASJ: Afterwards did you ever get to take any of the Black studies classes?

Dhameera Ahmad: I was just thinking about that. I must have because I got my degree in

Black studies. (Laughs). At first I was going to school for Urban Studies. I was an exciting

student, the things that I was thinking about, I was challenging then. I look back and I 75

think, "Gosh girl, you really were something!" However, I did not have the habits that one

needed to have. You know, we were like the cram, wait till the last minute types, because

something was going on all the time. We were always busy. I don't think that was really

that good though. It bothers me sometimes the classes that I took, I remember Black

economics, Black psychology. I remember we had a demographer. I had an interesting Urban

Studies. So it appeared that we selected a very sharp group from different disciplines. What

was so exciting about Black studies was that it was interdisciplinary. You had an opportunity

to be with people from different fields. Most of them were social scientists, but not all. They

were great classes. These were young people who had just finished their dissertations, so of

course all they were teaching were their dissertations. I remember one talked about the

authoritative personality. I had no idea why I was sitting there talking about an authoritative personality, Then, later as I was visiting the habits of the oppressors, it came right back

around and I realized what he was talking about. The authoritative personality, I'll never

forget it. On the other hand, with it being interdisciplinary, I wasn't always sure where it was going. I was trying to build myself a body of knowledge that would allow me to look at urban planning for African American people and I got kind of lost. So I decided to just go and stick with Black studies. I remember I went to Dr. Hilliard, who was the dean at the time and telling him "I wanted to get a teaching credential. I had finally decided that's what

I wanted to do." He said "You? You're going to teach teachers." And I remember thinking will you cut me some slack? I was probably late. But, he laid my whole life out for me on 76

the spot. He said "They are going to move you around. It'll get you through school. You won't pay anything. You're going to do this. You're going to do that. " Then I thought,

"Yeah right!" However, sure enough everything I've done has been a result of me being sponsored. It has been a result of me finding the resource. Then I went through Cal on a fellowship. I did my credential on an internship. It was very nice. So it was a time of really bright people. It wasn't just in Black Studies; there was an alliance with other

African folks who were in the other departments. You knew they were allies and they gave you time and support.

ASJ: In retrospect, was there anything about the '68 strike that you would have done differently?

Dhameera Ahmad: Just geographically. My mother lived up the street from the campus.

When I graduated high school, I moved on the other side of town to the Sunset District with a wonderful person, Victoria Duran. I think she saw that I was an at risk person.

(Laughs). When her roommate moved out, she asked me to move in with her. So there I am way over in the Sunset district, with no car, going to San Francisco state. I might have thought about that one. As small as it seems, it really did make life complicated for me.

As far as the strike was concerned, it was a hard sacrifice because I loved my classes.

When we started, we had these EOP classes and all of the teachers were just brilliant. I remember taking a dance class. These women had it going on. They had the rhythm and 77

these beautiful bodies. I was this pencil thin, stiff, very type A personality, so anything

that was dogmatic was comfortable for me. I had nothing, creative going for me. I

remember that was really hard. As far as the strike was concerned, not going to that class

was a relief for me because I couldn't dance!

ASJ: How about from an organizing standpoint? Was there anything that you would have done differently?

Dhameera Ahmad: What else would be different? I think from an organizing standpoint it was really very tight. We had a lot of allies. Older people supported us. White people supported us, people of color supported us. It really was a remarkable time. You also have to remember that at that time we were trying to stop a war. The sky was the limit. We didn't see ourselves as limited in terms of what we were doing. San Francisco State was small compared to what was going on in Vietnam. As I shared with you at the symposium, I had a boyfriend who came back in a box. This war was real for us children of working class people. It was also a time of this cultural defiance. Women stopped wearing bobs, they stopped pressing their hair, and people stopped doing this and stopped doing that. It all blended with the times. It was the era. And now that we've really had a chance to talk and refresh out brains about the history of it, I recall that I went to the archives and looked at the buildup that was happening. I didn't really know the particulars, but it didn't really matter. If we gon' get down lets go! It was just like that. But I wish that I had been better at 78

explaining things to the people that I loved. As a parent I think "What was that like for my mother?" They just stood behind me. They found us to be interesting. I didn't see us as being rebels. I saw us as being an extension of our parents. We were the fighting side of them, that they were, or would have been. But I think maybe in giving them more education about what we were doing, and involving them more. I think that would have been important having something more intergenerational.

ASJ: You saw yourself and your peers as extensions of your parents. Often, ones family

plays a role in creating future activists and people that are socio-politically involved.

Were your parents involved in civil rights or other political movements that inspired

you?

Dhameera Ahmad: You know, there are stories that are told and there are stories that are not told. My dad had very deep roots in activism. My dad was actually on his way to

Birmingham when the bombs exploded and the little girls were murdered. We were scared as I don't know if our dad might have been in there and died. In those days if you got a phone call, it was an act of God. My mother was bom after the Tulsa riots. I knew nothing about it. My mother never talked about it. My grandmother never talked about it. I read about it, did some research on it and I was able to talk to her. I even was able to talk to some elders in Tulsa about it. I realized that they knew what was going on. They knew they just had to play the game. They knew it wasn't right, they knew what injustice was; they knew what it meant to bite the dirt and start all over again. They knew that they were going to get a generation out that was going to be empowered with an education at least. So, both of them were somewhat different minded thinking. My parents were two southern-minded people who came to the north and I don't think they ever looked back.

They never wanted to go back. My mother was the first Negro to work at the Emporium.

My dad was the first Negro supervisor to do this. They were kind of up and coming. They were under a lot of pressure. They were isolated from the community. They were really under a lot of pressure and as a result of some of those dynamics they split up in a very critical time in my life and the lives of my four siblings. It was very hard. But, they did have some insight. I had some neighbors that would laugh at me and say "Ha Ha you're so funny" or "00 your hair looks so bad". But next thing you know, people Blacked up. By

1970, everybody had their little natural, and the bellbottoms. Older people started looking like us so it wasn't as weird. It's interesting because many of the people who had a more classical southern education knew the things that I had not been taught in school and learned at San Francisco State. I didn't know who Lawrence Dunbar was, I didn't know much about

Langston Hughes. I went to a Catholic high school with mostly Italian women. Nobody taught me anything about that. So I had this chance of learning about myself, and surprisingly, my mother knew a lot. So that gave us a chance to talk. Had it not been for

Black Studies, we would have lost that connection. It certainly wasn't happening any place else. It gave us the chance to go back to go to Tulsa, Oklahoma where my grandmother was. 80

I had a greater, higher interest. I was really shocked. My mother went to Booker T.

Washington High School. So it was like a nice coming back. Black Studies was a nice way to connect you to your own people. Now there were others that were on the panel and there

were other students whose families come from a lineage from the south, who went to school

in the south. For us, we were the first generation.

ASJ: Do you feel as though there's a generation gap in terms of this information being passed

down? I know many people have experienced this lack of communication within their own

families as well. It often takes asking to find out where you come from. Do you feel that this

is detrimental to Black youth and a sense of family connectedness?

Dhameera Ahmad: Absolutely. I really do in a number of ways. With my grandmother,

we were considered to be the superior beings because we were from the North. We were

city people, this that and the other. But, we didn't know anything and she knew that. She

knew that you could look like you're educated, but you really don't know. As she began to

see us searching for knowledge— I was an activist nationalist, my brothers joined the Nation

of Islam, so she saw us turning more to seeking knowledge about ourselves from the

perspective of us as African people, people who were coming out of slavery, people who

were choosing to be liberated. She began to see that and it changed our relationship, more

so with her than my parents. If you asked me what I was taught in high school, "I don't 81

know." (Laughs). I think a lot of that classical education that they had at the time wasn’t as important because it was just what they did. So you had the same experience home?

ASJ: Yes I did. I wasn't really upset, but I guess I was kind of disappointed that I didn't learn that early on. I feel like it really affects your self-esteem and the way that you learn and interpret information. You have all of these messages that keep on being taught about Black people and what we are and are not capable of. So when you hear great things about your ancestors, it dispels those notions.

Dhameera Ahmad: I remember when I graduated from college, my grandmother said

"You better get a degree are you kidding!" I had no idea that she knew Black Wall Street.

She had come from an era in which the dollar had passed from more than one, two, three, four five, ten times in a community. She did not have that Northern experience of let's go where it's nice, where it's White. They supported each other. They had their own. They were self-sufficient. They produced their own. I don't think I'll ever fully understand this.

But it was the thinking of the time. During the '60s there was a disconnect to that southern heritage. Certainly, the brilliant ones you honored, but just to what that heritage was. That wasn't being celebrated. Being a child of the 50s, raised in San Francisco, having the opportunity to go to San Francisco State 82

and get this classical education that was about Blackness, and also about liberation; and then be able to go back to your roots and to be recognized as someone who knew something that was valuable, that was part of your culture. That was really cool. I have no regrets. I really like the education that I got. I really like who it helped me become.

ASJ: This has been an incredibly insightful interview. Thank you so much for your time.

Dhameera Ahmad: Thank you. 83

School is out! An Interview with Sharron Treskunoff

Erin Haywood and Sharron Treskunoff These words "School is out!" were uttered in a political theory class by Sharron

Treskunoff on the first day of the 1968 San Francisco State strike, directing students to leave their class and join in the movement. Some remember this motivational woman as an unmovable force or simply a foot soldier fighting against social injustices and institutional racism. In 1968, students would remember Sharron Treskunoff as a Black woman with a natural, who was bad (in the good sense) enough to handle a green

Firebird, but most importantly as one of the students to start the 1968 strike.

Treskunoff is currently working for public housing in Sacramento, but prior to that f graduated from New College Law School and did legal services in San Francisco. 84

&

The 1968 Strike lasted five months, and to some it seemed like infinite days, but

through the power of student activism certain demands were met, and the most important

was that the creation of Ethnic Studies became a reality. Now forty years later, San

Francisco State's Africana Studies Department hosted a two day panel called Campus

Activism: Building on the Legacy: 1968 to 2008 and beyond, which was dedicated to the

Black (and non-Black) students who took part in the strike. One panel was dedicated to

the Black female student activists entitled Black Women in the Vanguard of the Strike,

which was historic because the female narrative, is very often overlooked by recorders. On

this day I was honored to interview Sharron Treskunoff and ask her about her experience

participating in the strike and its impact on her life.

Disclaimer: The following interview is paraphrased by the interviewer and was put

together in such a way to capture the truth of character and reality o f situations.

ASJ: First of all I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to interview

you. I would like to first start off by asking what year did you attend San Francisco

State University?

Treskunoff: I started in 1968 and finished in 1971.

ASJ: So I hear that back in the day you used to drive a green firebird. My source is a

Mr. Ray Tompkins. 85

Treskunoff: (Chuckle) Yes, I used to drive a green firebird, but I also had a two-seater

MG. You know a sports car. I used my slave money. You know financial aid. I used my

slave money to get that car.

ASJ: (Laughs) I like that slave money. I am going to use that...So how did you get

involved in the 1968 Strike? You were part of BSU (Black Student Union), right?

Treskunoff: Yes, I was part of the BSU. Well, I come on cutting a natural and read up

on what was going on in Berkeley. Then with the assassination of Martin Luther King

Jr....you know it was Black times. I fell into the BSU because they were already having

cultural events and the Black Panther Party was on campus.

ASJ: So how did the Black Panther Party influence the BSU?

Treskunoff: Well, the Black Panther Party had the breakfast for children and they were the community base. See the Black Panther Party is what I call the Proletarians (or the community base) and we were the intellectuals. See we were internationally studying, learning up on the war of the flea, the Red Book, etc. The Party was the bridge to a lot of community base. The community support saved our lives. There is a film that you need to see. Ask Dorothy about it. The film shows the magnitude of participation and even shows a young Ron Dellums on the ground with us. The Police were dressed in War GEAR—the

Swat team in fact. Our lives were on the line, I saw the movie; it was very emotional. Skulls 86

were cracked with blood. There were wall-to-wall people. See where you have that new

Gator building, what is known as the Cesar Chavez Student Center is where there used to

be grass and that was our platform to organize everyday. That building was built to stop

students from organizing.

ASJ: Speaking about student organizing, can you tell me the story behind "School is

out" for which you are known?

Treskunoff: There's a book about the history of San Francisco State and look at the section

about the strike. My roommate was the first Black homecoming queen, Gloria Tyus, she is

actually in the book. I am misrepresented in the book. They mixed up me with my

roommate and had her saying "School is out". There is a picture of me leaning against Dr.

Nathan Hare in a political theory class. On the first day of the strike, a couple of other

students and I went into that classroom and it was there I firmly stated, "School is out." We

were on strike and I was asking why were they in class. That picture was the day that I got

suspended. We were on strike for five months. It was the longest (educational) strike in history. First day of the strike we were going classroom-to-classroom calling students out of their classrooms.

ASJ: So how does it make you feel when people refer to you as a foot soldier or a sistah down for the cause? 87

Treskunoff: It's chillin'. It was a humbling experience to be involved in a movement.

Like I said before, it is like all my babies (referring to the new generation) are poppin' up

all over the country.

ASJ: Once out of SFSU you had to defeat new demons, such as Law school and Section

8 housing with your job. How did the 68' strike prepare you?

Treskunoff: Everything I do goes back to this movement. People I met along the way created bonds. We lost a lot of comrades along the way. This was a serious thing. We lost them either through jail, or just personal hardships from which they weren't able to recover.

It impacted a lot of people psychologically. I consider myself lucky. I was able to make it through. I always go back to that period in time. I feel confident that I am doing the job that I intended to do: to help the Black community.

ASJ: Please explain to me your M.O. "Save the world one person at a time."

Treskunoff: I realized that you can't save everybody.

ASJ: I have come to that conclusion too and usually you discover that with battles

within your family.

Treskunoff: Oh, definitely. You are lucky that you have discovered this at such a young

age. I have just discovered this and it has kept me on one plane. There is so much to be

done out here. With the strike we wanted to evoke change. In some ways we failed

because afterwards we realized that our arms did not reach that far. But no matter how much we danced our community problems were too big. Through my job, I am touching

folks successfully, taking it one individual at a time. Reagan took money from Legal Aid,

which affected how many people they could serve and what issues they could fight

against, so I started a program, teaching women how to represent themselves. It is about

how best I can touch someone's life. It's like the story of David and Goliath, where I am

David and the government is Goliath. Housing is an important piece to living. In my

position I can help people on a daily basis and help them maintain their housing. Our

community needs people to represent them—to have a voice. There are no more rescuers.

ASJ: Working for Section 8, can you discuss the gentrification that's happening to San

Francisco, especially Bayview Hunter's Point?

Treskunoff: I was here when the Geneva Towers relocated San Francisco Blacks. It's hard.

The Federal Government oversees the nation. There are never enough assistance programs.

The direction the Federal Government is heading in they are going to start selling off public housing. The 1938 Housing Act states that 30% of a person's income had to go towards housing. People then took to the streets in protest. Now in the 21st century things are getting worse. Don't know where the think tanks are. The Housing authorities are the biggest landlords. Money off the top is going toward Homeland Security, which used to go to Health and Human Services and Housing. This is a very interesting time, a very critical time.

ASJ: What is the message you would give to the youth today? 89

Treskunoff: Stop playing. It is a very serious time. Us, old dawgs went through some stuff

and we are ready to pass the baton to this generation. We are successful, meaning we

remain true to our morals. This is a very serious time. Can't emphasis that enough. Can't be

about partying. Like young brother Coby was talking about how even at parties he tries to

send a message. Of course it is natural to let loose but it can't all be about partying. The

clamps of society will shut down and there will be no one there to help you. There are people coming behind you. As long as we have breath we have to continue this movement.

We have not won...it is still going on.

ASJ: Ms. Treskunoff thank you so much for granting this really important interview.

Treskunoff: Thank you for your interest in what I have to share.

/ 90

An Interview with Ramona Tascoe

Ramona Tascoe and Johnsee Williams

I had the privilege and honor to interview Dr. Ramona Tascoe. She was a crucial part of the BSU led strike of 1968, and figures in that historical event for her courage and commitment that meant her getting arrested on the first day of the strike. For a person coming from a strict background that included twelve years of Catholic school education, her actions showed her sheer determination and leadership on behave of

Black rights.

Dr. Tascoe has the personal characteristics that enabled her to deal effectively with a difficult administration during the period of the 1968 strike. It is those same characteristics and her personal comportment that made her matriculate from San 91

Francisco State into the University of California Medical School at San Francisco, and then later adding to that, studying and becoming a minister. Today, her name is prefixed by Rev. and Dr. Though a busy woman, easily identified by the phone plug in her ear, so as to be on the hour accessible to her patients and parishioners, the Rev. Dr. Ramona

Tascoe yet makes herself available to students here at San Francisco State University such as myself who are interested in talking to her and learning by her example and those of the other heroic BSU leaders and members during the strike of 1968.

Dr. Tascoe granted me this interview for the Africana Studies Journal (ASJ), coming

to campus to spend a full afternoon with me, which meant taking time out of her busy

schedule to do so. She also accepts requests from SFSU faculty to speak to their classes,

and she is making herself accessible to the College of Ethnic Studies for the planning of

events in recognition of the 40th anniversary of the BSU and the Strike that demanded and

instituted a field of study that spread nationwide and globally, and laid the groundwork for

what now is the San Francisco State University College of Ethnic Studies.

While throughout the nation there are programs and departments of Africana

Studies, and other ethnic specific studies, the mighty San Francisco State University is the

one and only institution of higher education in the country to have the vision and to have put forth the support for an entire College of Ethnic Studies that includes in addition to

Africana Studies (formerly Black Studies), also American Indian Studies, Arab-Islamic Studies, Asian American Studies, and RAZA Studies. This is in addition to a program in

Ethnic Studies and an MA in both Asian American Studies and Ethnic Studies. In progress

as I write this is the proposal for the MA in Africana Studies. All of this was made possible by the sort of well thought-out and planned student activism that harks back to a time when the BSU rigorously persevered against all odds, without succumbing to fears of the risks that had to be taken, and without ending their protest until they had won the fight well fought. Dr. Ramona Tascoe counts along with the other BSU students of the day—all honored as we celebrate their Legacy.

ASJ: Dr. Tascoe, I would like to begin this interview by asking you to share something about your background, such as where you are from and how you were raised.

Ramona Tascoe: I was bom in Baton Rouge Louisiana at our Lady of the Lake hospital. I am the middle child of five: two younger brothers and two older sisters. My parents are both from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I have been here in California since I was three. I was educated in San Francisco at Norte Dame grammar school and high school-- twelve years of Catholic girls' school. From there I came here to San Francisco State, which at the time was a college, not a university. I matriculated here in 1967 and graduated in

1970.On the question of how I was raised, ours was a very patriarchal household. My father was the dominant parent; he was the only one working. He insisted that my mom stay in the home and provide the kind of nurturing love and support that would make for a good solid 93

family unit with five children raised to successfully finish college. So my mom was a stay- at-home mother. We had tremendous restrictions on us to protect us from the evil world outside. School would begin at 8 and school would end at 10 minutes of three, by three thirty we had to be home. The only exception by the time we reached college was that if we were successful academically and we made the dean's list by the second year in college, then my father would allow us a little more freedom. We had to show some evidence of maturity and that we were ready to live our lives at the moral standard that our parents expected of us. Just to punctuate how restricted we were, in high school all three girls were permitted to go to their junior and senior prom only if my mother chaperoned and only if my father selected someone from the community who he trusted and paid to be our escort; so my father recycled the same date for my oldest sister and the sister just before me. However, when it was my turn to attend the junior prom I took a stalwart position. I was not going to accept that recycled candidate; I selected my own. That was probably the first time my dad and I had one of those clear father/daughter standoffs in teenage years. I won and he lost; but in the end we both won, for he realized from the experience that I didn't have bad judgment, and I did not intend to end up "messed up" as he feared would be the case if he allowed his daughters to have that kind of freedom dating and choosing young men to "cavort" with.

ASJ: Did your father restrict your brothers as they did you and your sisters? 94

Ramona Tascoe: That's a very good question. There was a double standard in my household. As I said, it was a patriarchal household. My brothers were allowed to participate in extracurricular activities; allowed to go to the gym on the weekends and weekdays after school as well. My two older sisters were compliant, meeting the instruction and restrictions of my parents, but even through grammar school and high school they always knew that they were going to have a problem with me.

ASJ: You and your siblings were raised with definite morals and ethics.

Ramona Tascoe: Yes. I came from a very old fashion morally upstanding family. Most of our standards were rooted in religion and the morals that came from the Bible. We certainly did not curse nor speak harshly to one another. When we had the typical fights among siblings, unlike in many households today where the parents encourage siblings to work out the differences themselves, my parents would stop and become the refer& and bring us to a point of harmony and make us kiss and make up. Having to kiss and make up wasn't anything we really wanted to do. I think it paid off because my siblings and I are very close today and we don't speak to one another harshly; rather we have reverence towards one another with regard to how we treat a brother or a sister. This has carried over into how we treat those who are not blood relatives. We had to go to church every Sunday.

My mother would wake us up at seven o'clock in the morning with a radio program 95

broadcasting Lewis H. Narciss in Oakland, so we would hear Baptist music at seven

o'clock Sunday mornings while we were getting dressed to attend Catholic Mass at eight

o'clock.

ASJ: About your parents, did your parents have a college education?

Ramona Tascoe: No, but my father did attend Southern University in Baton Rouge for two years. He was a real bright guy and was supposed to transfer to Xavier's pharmacy school and had been accepted and scored high on the admissions test. But he didn't have the money to attend. At that the time in the late 1920s early 1930s the opportunity for higher education and financial aid was not there. So my father lived somewhat of a frustrated life, wanting his children to have what he wasn't able to have, which was the full measure of a college education. My mother finished eighth grade for similar reasons, but had more poverty in her life. She was raised by her grandmother because both her parents were not in the home for one reason or another. My father worked at the San Francisco Bay Naval shipyard as an air conditioning and refrigerator mechanic. And my mom, as I said, was a stay-at-home mother. We lived in an apartment building that my father managed; therefore, the rent was deferred and his second job, a part from working at the shipyard, was to keep the apartments occupied. If there were any problems with repairs or tenants he had to resolve them. So my parents struggled and sacrificed and made certain that their children had full access to those things that they wished for. Number one of which was a good education.

ASJ: Now Dr. Tascoe we are going to transition to the strike. How did you get involved in the strike and also the BSU?

Ramona Tascoe: Well I have to go back a little bit and share that my father was very philosophical about how he wanted his children to behave. He had a philosophy on how to raise African American children during the time in which we were called Negroes. We had to speak the King's English and not talk about race ever; we should not have a chip on our shoulder. A combination of those factors would make us successful. Moreover, he did not want his three daughters to find themselves in a relationship with a man who could dangle over their heads the sense of security because he was providing for them, and so my father really did want us to be fully equipped to be able to provide for ourselves in the event that the relationship with the husband did not go well. And so I went to San Francisco State with principles and standards instilled by my parents. As much as I wanted to stick to my father's rules, I was immediately introduced to the Black Student Union within days or so of arriving at San Francisco State College. Just to see more Black students and to hear them engaged with one another in such warm, affirming ways, talking about their blackness, my goodness! This was wonderful. They called themselves Black; they 97

weren't Negroes, and some of them had their hair natural while I was still wearing my

hair straight. I was like a kid in a candy store.

It was like all of a sudden I had came out of a cocoon and I could see myself getting ready to blossom into something. I didn't know what it was going to be exactly, but whatever it was, I enjoyed what I was introduced to. And so for my first year-year and half at San

Francisco State, my mother and father had no idea that I was involved with campus dissidents— those Black students, those activists, those students on the six o clock news or read about in the newspaper. But one day I came hpme from school around three o'clock in the afternoon and my mother told me that she thought to borrow one of my purses, so she had emptied it out and guess what she found? An envelope addressed to George Murray,

Minister of Education for the Black Panther Party. Of course she just about died. That was probably the first time my mother or father had any awareness that one of their children could possibly go wayward. But by this time if I wasn't yet eighteen, I almost was. And I was well on my way to stepping out independent of them and making my own decisions even though I still lived at home.

ASJ: So you lived at home throughout college?

Ramona Tascoe: Yeah, I did. All three years of college, yes. I matriculated in 1967 and graduated in 1970,1 wanted to graduate and acquire freedom from home. The great irony is that I was among these Black students who were talking about the history of struggle for 98

people of color, but I came out of a household in which I felt oppressed—though loved—as

a lot of the Black folks I was hearing more and more about through my experiences at San

Francisco state. Now understand, I knew some aspects of our Black history, but it wasn't

anything that my father and mother permitted us to dwell on or allow ourselves to get

absorbed in until we got off to college. And then college was whatever the curriculum was

and they didn't began to scrutinize that until they heard on the news about the San Francisco

State BSU, about the Black Panther Party, about the threat of a strike and so forth.

ASJ: Did coming from a Catholic school separate you initially from the other Black

students at San Francisco State?

Ramona Tascoe: Catholic school had meant a pleated skirt, white blouse, collars outside of my sweater, white oxfords with snow-white socks, lotioned legs and hands, and no makeup. So when I came onto campus, even though I wasn't wearing a uniform, most of my wardrobe was kind of like a spin off of on my uniform and I looked so out of place because everyone else looked more worldly but not in a negative way. I remember Jerry Vemardo used to say to me

"Sistah why do you wear such dark clothes? You ought to wear more colors." Such comments made me feel uncomfortable and self-conscious. I remember the first time I was in the BSU office and Jimmy Garrett was present. He looked at me and chuckled out loud. It was really clear that he was sizing how conservative I looked. I was clearly not dressing in womanly way.

So I think I was teased a lot. People did not know from where I came and everybody 99

found opportunities when they could to remind me that I was different. Over time the teasing was playful. Benny would frequently tease me when they learned how restricted my upbringing was. And to their credit all of the brothers and the sisters would say to me when the clock struck three, "Tascoe don't you need to get home?" and so minding my schedule for me to make certain that I didn't get myself in trouble with my folks. With the BSU, I saw my peers' love unfolding in an extended family sort of way through the development of relationships with classmates— peers that I had never experienced before, having attended schools in which I generally had been one of the few Black students in Irish Catholic dominated classes, with an equally small number of Filipino students and the same for

Latinas. San Francisco State was initially a challenge but the BSU made it easier for me to snuggle in to a comfort zone as I continued my growth and development into full adulthood and womanhood.

ASJ: Looking back at the BSU and the strike do you remember the ratio of Black males and Black females? »

Ramona Tascoe: I can approximate. I don't have any exact numbers but there appeared to be an equal balance between brothers and sisters, certainly a better balance in numbers than we see today in higher education, where now it is dominated by women due to the barriers, challenges, and conditions in society that have directly impacted brothers. 100

ASJ: Yes, this is a great concern in America for Black people, and should be for all people of conscience. And it is so evident when you walk across campus, or glance around the classroom, and see the scarcity of Black male students. Now, Dr. Tascoe, please let me ask you, did the BSU negotiate with the administration to resolve the issues of the strike?

Ramona Tascoe: Yes, at various intervals. I was one of the students who negotiated with the administration; but let me back up for a moment. At the time that the strike was nearing the end, most of the brothers had been arrested, or they were not necessarily in jail but it was such a police watch for who had been arrested. The students were being photographed. There were plain-clothes officers on campus, and part of the arrest, the arraignment once they were arrested, was that the brothers were restricted from coming on campus until their case had been settled. And so as the strike neared an end it was more and more difficult, if not in fact impossible, for the brothers to be on campus as they were before. I can't speak to the issue if some snuck in the back door, but because of that, when it came to settling the strike the Third World Liberation Front, the Students for a Democratic Society, the American

Federation of Teachers, all of the major sympathizers of the strike, were asked to send a representative to an ad-hoc committee that would work with administration settling the strike. I don't remember exactly how it was but I was chosen to represent the BSU. 101

I recall having numerous conversations with S.I. Hayakawa about the fact he was willing to

listen to me on behave of the BSU but he wasn't willing to listen to any of those who he

considered known "radicals." But of course the great irony is that he didn't even know I was

arrested on the very first day of the strike; He did not know because at that time, given the

restrictions in my household and the fear and anxiety that my parents might find out I was

arrested, I had given an alias and the alias that I gave turned out to be the name of an

exchange student who just happened to be on campus during that period of time. I had no

idea of that when I gave the name Mona Williams. The court record did not have my real

name until a couple of weeks later when I was arraigned and my attorney Willie Brown,

arranged by the Student Defense fund, went to court with me and he entered into the record my full legal name. But by this time the campus had initiated a process to find who this

Mona Williams person was and restrict her from campus. So they never restricted Ramona

Tascoe. So when it came down to settling the strike, the irony, as I said, is that I was on the committee to negotiate the settlement of the strike.

ASJ: Could you take us back to that day you were arrested?

Ramona Tascoe: On that particular day we had been caucusing in the BSU hut, as we had been for weeks leading up to the strike. We were told on that particular day that we were going to divide into cadres of students, and then assigned to various offices and classrooms we would conduct a political education about the strike. Number one, we would announce 102

the strike. Number two, we would list the demands. Number three; we would encourage people to support us. On that particular morning, I am not real sure of why, except in hindsight there must have been some anticipation of trouble because when I went into the

BSU office wearing my regular clothes that I had left home in, it might had been Sharon

Treskunoff or Charlotta Simon who said "Tascoe you gonna wear those clothes? You know anything could happen?" and I said, "Well, I don't have any other clothes." I remember very clearly what I was wearing: a yellow, blouse, red plaid slacks, bellbottoms with a cuff in them, something that would clearly distinguish me in a crowd. And in one of the backrooms of the BSU office was a pair of navy blue corduroy Levis that fit me, so I changed into the Levis. Since I had an Afro, someone said I better put this scarf on my head because cameras might be there. We marched up to the Anthropology department. On the way, someone said, "Tascoe when we get there you read the demands." We marched into the office, taking the secretaries by surprise, whereupon I proceeded to read the demands.

As I got to the 3 rd demand, all of a sudden sparks literally began to fly As it turned out, a member of my cadre, unbeknownst to me, had taken out a pair of wire cutters and proceeded to cut the telephone wires to the IBM electric typewriter in the office, and then to throw the typewriter out of the window.

% P I was shocked. Before I could say anything, everyone in the cadre broke and ran out of the office, leaving me behind still reading the demands, until one of the secretaries said 103

"Honey, you better leave." She prompted me twice in this way, but I was trying to stand on

the principle that I had not done anything wrong. But becoming keenly aware of the

situation, I finally also ran from the office, only to find I could not stand on my feet, and

tripped twice. When I went down a third time, someone grabbed my arm and twisted it

behind my back, and handcuffed me. I realized then that my previous two falls were the

efforts of the undercover police who had been planted in the building, as they had anticipated possible trouble. They hauled me back into the Anthropology office where the secretary reported I had not done anything wrong. But the officer countered that I was caught running from the scene. They marched me out of the building where my face was met by television cameras, which put me in a terrible panic worrying that my parents would see this later on the news. They put me in a paddy wagon and took me to jail. I was photographed, fingerprinted, and thrown in the tank with other newly arrested individuals. My greatest fear was how would I get out of that jail so that I could get home by 3 o'clock. Finally after four hours, I was released on my own recognizance, due to the efforts of the already established Student Legal Defense fund.

ASJ: So Dr. Tascoe you were arrested, and has that arrest ever stood in the way of your professional career? »'

Ramona Tascoe: Not at all. I realized very early that my activism at San Francisco State

College, including the arrest constituted a badge of courage that I was proud to display. 104

When I finished medical school and had to apply for my license, ever job for which I

applied asked if I had ever been arrested. I have always been proud to answer, "Yes, I was a

student activist at San Francisco State College."

* ASJ: Thank you so much Dr. Tascoe. This is so exciting for me to be having this one-on-

one conversation with you, and it is hard to leave off here, for I know there is so much

more to be told. We, the students, and faculty here at SFSU, look forward to your book

that you will surely write that will take us past the day of your arrest. But for a preview of

your talents as a writer, I am so pleased to have a copy of your poem "Empowerment,"

written years later when you were in Kenya and preparing to address the Marketing

Society of Kenya on women's rights. Thank you for allowing the Africana Studies

Journal to conclude this interview with your poem.

Ramona Tascoe: Thank You. EMPOWERMENT by Ramona Tascoe

When I was young I thought I knew

Exactly how I'd be

Standing midst my sisters

Having solved the mystery

Of life's unending struggles

That challenged them and me.

I wondered, though

And labored hard.

I questioned every day

Why life seemed so disparate,

Taking women as its prey.

Why girls and women struggle so

To balance as they do

The tasks of daily living

For those they give love to. Who said that they must always

Be last to care for self,

To place their needs within a box

And place "it" on a shelf.

Not to label "it" as fragile,

Not to handle "it" with care,

Just to toss aside "its" contents

Like "it" wasn't even there.

Be ready to defer their needs

Time and time again,

And wait for others to approve

When they can self-attend.

Who said that women must pretend

That they aren't just as smart,

That they can't be more brilliant

Than their male counterpart.

That a man must give permission

For her to be declared

A vital member of the team Whose leadership is rare.

And what of this glass ceiling

That taints their work each day,

Which threatens to deny them

Equal stay and equal pay.

Should each of them be silent,

Be glad for what they have,

And promise not to rock the boat

For fear they lose their share.

I frankly never listened

As others told me how

To accept these daily burdens

Standing tall and walking proud.

I just knew when I was young,

The answer was inside.

For then, I was invincible;

Of this I held great pride.

I'd cock my nose up high Roll my eyeballs to the side

And dare a fervent challenge

From my loved ones who would chide:

"You are simply too hard-headed

And destined to collide

With obstacles along the way

Which will surely break your stride."

Still, no one else could tell me

\ How to solve disparities.

For only I knew clearly—

For only I could see.

The picture was quite vivid;

Colors bright and well defined.

There was simply no mistaking

The translation in my mind.

I knew with great conviction

I was right and they were wrong. There'd be no hesitation,

In time they'd come along.

And if they didn't—

Then, so what!

How could it even matter.

For I was me and I knew me—

On this, there'd be no chatter.

And were I wrong,

Could all be lost?

Perhaps...but once again,

I knew the Power that dwelt in me,

My best Eternal Friend.

But, someone broke my spirit.

Someone taught me how

To let these little burdens take command

Then take a bow.

Perhaps it was my mother... A sister or a friend,

A colleague or a minister

Who told me I must bend.

...Who said that it was wiser

And far more feminine,

To let these little burdens

Go unchecked and not offend.

I'm sure they didn't mean to,

But the harm occurred no less.

Because as I got older

I began to second-guess

Exactly what my options were

To take control of life's

Unending little challenges

That cause such major strife.

So Now, I boldly walk trough life

Determined on my way, Refusing to accept those things

That other people say

Should simply be accepted

For peace or for tradition.

My heart would cry, my spirit die,

And thus a new condition would emerge

For me to wrestle with...

The stress of my submission.

In time my health would falter,

My pressure creep up high,

Perhaps a stroke, a heart-attach,

Or maybe I would die.

I'd likely be quite anxious.

My doctor then would say:

'Take time for self,

Go take a break.

Stop whining and don’t cry’. Avoid the urge to moan and groan

And gripe throughout the day.

Go exercise and get in shape.

Recall you gave away the

Spirit you were bom with

That made you feel okay.

So if, perchance, you change your mind, decide to buck tradition,

You'll likely find improvement in

Your faltering condition.

Perhaps you'll start to sleep again,

Recover from your plight,

Restore your sense of wellness,

Resume that perfect sight

That guided you in childhood

When you would not be denied

The equal opportunity

To live your life in stride. 113

An interview with Cheryl Garrett, One of the Original

Members of the

San Francisco State College Black Student Union

Renay Udosia and Cheryl Garrett The Africana Studies Journal (ASJ) is dedicating this issue to the 40th anniversary of the

BSU of the 1968 student strike. Ms. Cheryl Garrett is one of the original members who during the strike at State College helped to establish the first Black Studies Department in the country Ms. Garrett earned her BA in Elementary Education from the University of the District of Columbia and her MA in Education with an emphasis in Early

Childhood Development. She is currently working as A Leadership Coach with New

Leaders for New Schools in the Bay Area. 114

ASJ: Cheryl I've really enjoyed spending this time talking with you about life, politics and education. Let's move on to the actual interview. What raised your awareness to the cause of the Black Student Union (BSU) and the Black Panthers?

Cheryl: I was never involved with the Panthers. I began San Francisco College in 1967

through the EOP program. At that time there was a lot going on, not only on campus but in the community too, such as the Cultural Arts programs and gentrification. So when I

entered in 1967, talk of a strike was already in progress. I worked in the Black Studies

office as a secretary. My role at that time was getting first aid materials, collecting food,

and recruiting more Black students. The Black Studies Office was located in a bungalow next to the Tutoring office where the Student Union is located today.

ASJ: I know you mentioned that when you entered San Francisco State College a strike was already being discussed, but can you talk about how the strike got started?

Cheryl: At that time there was no degree offered in Black Studies. The San Francisco

State offered some classes in Black studies, but there was no department.

ASJ: It is a tribute to the youths of 1968, that today we have an entire College of Ethnic

Studies What would you say are some similarities or differences between the 115

generations? Do you feel that the younger generation today has no concept of the

struggles before them?

Cheryl: The young today are not taught as we were. Today they are caught-up in

different issues. Things look different but are actually the same. As for back then, the

issues are still the same yet Black folk are not doing anything today. We still see buffoonery in the movie roles that are being played by the younger generation. My daughter Nataki Garrett is teaching at the California Institute of the Arts, where she completed her Masters in Fine Arts, in Valencia, California. She teaches her student self-awareness through theatre art verses black-ploitation.

Black folks need to heal. Many of us have not dealt with our issues of being Black. We must love ourselves and whomever we choose to be with.We still have issues, for example, with good hair and bad hair.

ASJ: Regarding our hair, the women's panel on which you participated, "The Women in the

Vanguard of the Strike," that was held in February of this year, spent some time on the significance of the Natural back in 1968. They spoke of the liberating effect of going

i natural. I was truly surprised when the women panelists talked about the negative responses that they initially received from either a family member or friend.

Cheryl: The struggles are the same; they are dealt with differently. 116

ASJ: Please speak about how you have continued your life of activism

Cheryl: My activism is through education. As you grow you learn not to be shy, but instead

to speak up. I'm a Coach for New Principles. When finishing my education I wanted to be a

coach. I wanted to help new leaders who don't know how to deal with students, how to

create a curriculum, or deal with the business of running a school. Education is a different

form of racism. I see where the teachers have low expectations of the children who happen

to be Black boys. I had an encounter with a White teacher who had no objective, no plan,

and no expectations of her Black students. When questioned as to why she did not have a

plan her reply was "I could not choose my students." Her comment was very troubling for

me as an educator.

ASJ: Yes, very troubling, and devoting yourself to doing something about the problem

with such teachers assigned to schools with predominately Black enrollment is

important. I would like to take this opportunity Cheryl to thank you for allowing me to have this interview with you. I have been truly enlightened to the struggles and issues that African Americans were faced with during the 60's trying to achieve an education.

Thank you.

Cheryl. I am quite honored to share in this endeavor with you, a student of today, and here at what is now, San Francisco State University. 117

Interview with Sharon Jones

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Sharon Jones and Asheka Huey

The San Francisco State Strike of 1968 loud in its outspoken leaders, ambitious

demands, and objective to see progression in the academic arena. Often those who receive credit for the success of the strike, such as Nathan Hare and George Mason

Murray, were deservedly praised and revered. Conversely, the soft-spoken little known

subtler voices were looked over and passed up. Yet, this was not the case for Sharon

Jones. Petite in stature and soft spoken, Sharon Jones, like many others, played an intricate role during the strike. She organized petitions and pickets as well as marched for the cause. She knew there was a task to be accomplished. Seeing the growing need in the community she heeded its call. She was truly a woman who spoke softly yet carried a big stick. 118

ASJ: First I would like to thank you for granting me this interview and coming to share

your knowledge with us today here at San Francisco State University.

Sharon Jones: Oh you're very welcome. I am excited to be here. (Smiles).

ASJ: All right, well first I am going to ask you some general questions so that we can

get to know a little bit about you. So please tell me your full name, the year you

attended San Francisco State.

Sharon Jones: Well my name is Sharon Jones aka Kondi Bala. I attended State in 1968 but I did not graduate from here.

ASJ: From where did you graduate?

Sharon Jones: I received my degree from New College of California.

ASJ: Thank you for that information as prelude to our discussion. I want to move on now to what you are doing today. Are you still working in the community?

Sharon Jones: Yes, I am. I currently live in Oakland and I am very active in my community. Right now I am working with a children's group, a grassroots organization.

We do a lot of singing, drumming, and dancing with the children to instill values. The director of the children's group is Ms. Anita Brooks. She has been working with these 119

children for the last thirty years and has created an awesome organization. We do a lot of

exciting things and open the children up to new experiences. For example a couple of

years ago we took some of the children to Paris, France to participate in a cultural

exchange with the children there. The kids had a really good time. I was also extremely

happy that my son was able to come along. We were there a week and had such a good

time. I'm also affiliated with my Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council (NCPC). We do

a lot of good for the community. I am the recording secretary.

ASJ: That is awesome! I was also granted the opportunity to go to Paris and it was the

single most enriching experience of my life, I can only imagine how those children felt.

Now about 40th Anniversary of the San Francisco State College Strike and the Black

Students Union of 1968, please share with our readers why you decided to join the BSU

when you were an undergraduate student here in the 1960s.

Sharon Jones: Umm, it wasn't a decision that was made. (Pauses) It was just something that happened. You know, the reason why I came here was because I was recruited through EOP during my high school years. I was actually one of four hundred students who initially were admitted here through the EOP program. You know, I couldn't really tell how or when I got involved with the BSU. It was just that if you were here, it was going on and you were a part 120

of it; those were the times. You know back then many Black students were veiy involved and that was just something you had to do to promote change in the educational system.

ASJ: As an example of your involvement, please share an experience or event that

symbolized your experience with the BSU. Please comment on when it become real for

you.

Sharon Jones: I would say that it became real to me during a rally on 19th Avenue,

right in front of the campus. It was at that time that I was arrested for protesting. I did not spend very long in jail, but when I was arrested it became real for me. When the policemen came up to me—and not just to me but to all of us and demanded that we disband—I remember one policemen taking his Billy-club and shoving it into my ribs

and I said to myself, "Oh this is real!"

ASJ: Wow! That is powerful to envision, especially compared to the atmosphere on campus nowadays. With all that turmoil, what do you recall that the BSU meant to you and your peers?

Sharon Jones: It meant everything to us. It was like our foundation and our base. It was truly the source from which all my political ideas arose. 121

ASJ: So during that active period for you as a student in the BSU, what were your

perceptions of the role of Black women on and off campus?

Sharon Jones: You know, I can't say that I really had a perspective on that in terms of our

roles. I didn't focus on that. I was out there doing what I knew we had to do and I didn't

associate that with being a male role or anything of the sort. It was more that we were

working towards goals and we were all in it together. So, I didn't really see it as a

male/female thing; it was a like a community effort. I would say it was more of a BSU

member and a student thing, not gender.

ASJ: Please speak a bit more on some of those goals the BSU had during the time you were involved?

Sharon Jones: Um, well the main goal that I can think of then was the strike.

Everything we did was centered on the strike, so it was about getting our demands met.

You know, doing what we had to do to get our mission accomplished.

ASJ: Let me jump for a moment to the BSU of today. Do you have an opinion of the

BSU today? 122

Sharon Jones: You know I really don't have an opinion as of yet. I haven't been here on campus since 1969. So in terms of an opinion I can't render one. Yet I hope that through conferences like the one today, that will change.

ASJ: Yes, the BSU on campus today could really benefit from more female input, especially from those who participated in the strike of 1968. Now for my last question, because I know we have to go. Please comment on what the 40th anniversary of the strike represents to you?

Sharon Jones: I had no idea when I was involved with this 40 years ago that it would materialize into what it has become. At first I didn’t realize the magnitude of my involvement, however, as I soon gained a full understanding of why the strike was necessary I knew there was no turning back. And look at what we accomplished. The

College of Ethnic Studies and all the departments within this nationally respected college.

ASJ: Yes, and the fact that the BSU harks back to when you were an undergraduate student here is still a vital part of student life on this campus. Although this is a brief interview, it gives our readers a glimpse into you at a time when students placed necessary activism right up there with attention to class work—and tried to put in the 123

time and study required to achieve in both. We today also want to bring about necessary

changes that 40 years hence will be something to feel proud of having brought about.

Ms. Jones again thank you for agreeing to speak with me. I along with readers of the

Black Studies Journal look forward to hearing more from you now that you have

returned to campus for the 2008 events focusing on the Legacy of the strike of 1968.

Sharon Jones: Well, thank you for appreciating those of us who returned here to lend

voice to an awesome cause. Education is ongoing.

Note: History will be made this year with Sharon Jones returning to San Francisco

State to work towards her MA in the College of Ethnic Studies—a college that developed out of the 1968 Strike, in which Sharon played an active role. 124

Interview with Carolyn J. Thompson

Carolyn Thompson and Nyuieko Bansah Any student who has taken classes at San Francisco State University's famous

Ethnic Studies department has learned about the rich legacy surrounding the strike of

1968 which brought many Ethnic Studies departments to SFSU and colleges throughout the country. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Black Students Union (BSU) and the 1968 strike and the impact it has made diversifying academic programs on college campus. Dr. Carolyn J. Thompson was a student and member of the San

Francisco State College BSU in 1968 (now San Francisco State University).

Currently, Dr. Thompson teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City where she is an associate professor in the School of Education. In honor of the 40lh anniversary of the 1968 strike, Dr. Thompson has extended herself to the students of San

Francisco State University to discuss the BSU, the impact of the 1968 strike, and the future of student movements.

* 125

ASJ: I would like to thank you so much for speaking on campus today and allowing women like myself to see the legacy and impact women like you have made. Thank you for agreeing to do this interview with me.

Dr. Thompson: It's a pleasure!

ASJ: What brought you to San Francisco State College, now known as San Francisco

State University?

Dr. Thompson: Well, the Black Student Union was active in recruiting Black students

from all over the Bay Area. I was very impressed and inspired by the Black Student Union

at San Francisco State College, which led me to become involved in the Black Student

Association at San Francisco City College. BSU members went into the communities and

brought people from the streets to college and that inspired me. They were more than just a

student organization and I wanted to be a part of that. I was also attracted to San Francisco

State College's dance program. The dance program here was known for bringing to the

college accomplished dancers from various companies to teach students the spirit of dance.

ASJ: While attending San Francisco State College, what other organizations were you

involved in? 126

Dr. Thompson: Oh, I loved being active within the school and the community. I tried to involve myself in as many things as possible. I was a member of EMAJE, BSU, and several dance clubs. I was also heavily involved in .the community. At that time, participating in organizations was very strategic in achieving goals. On an average day, at 6:00 am, I would go to Sacred Heart Church in San Francisco to help with the Black

Panther Breakfast program, then at by 8:00am I went to work in a Law Office here in the city; then by 1:00pm I would be at dance rehearsals. Around 4:00pm I would be in class at San Francisco State College, and in between time, I would be tutoring for the

BSU tutorial program. As you can see I was very active! (Laughs)

ASJ: (Laughs) I see! When did you find time to sleep?

Dr. Thompson: (Laughs) I made some time for sleep here and there!

ASJ: During the BSU of 1968 women's panel on which you participated here at SFSU on

February 28,2008 it was mentioned that you were an accomplished

Afro-Haitian Dancer? Why did you love to dance?

Dr. Thompson: Dancing was a way of educating me about culture. After college, I danced for several companies until I injured myself. I decided to go back to school. I attended Mills College and received a master's degree in Dance. Since then I've been a teacher. It's something I love to do. Although I was saddened about my injury, life is divinely direct, I was meant to be an educator. 127

ASJ: Everything happens for a reason.

Dr. Thompson: Yes it does.

ASJ: The BSU has been a vocal organization on campus for many years. What did the

BSU mean to you and your peers when you were a student at SF State College?

Dr. Thompson: The BSU was a community organization made up of students who did not just stay within the perimeters of the college campus. We were all over the community, recruiting for school, tutoring, performing, and spreading the news about change. During the 1960's, thoughts about being Black began to change. There was a strong cultural movement that brought a consciousness to us. We all came from the community and we wanted to use our college education and organization to be a voice for the community from which we came.

ASJ: Did the BSU introduce you to activism?

Dr. Thompson: No, my mother introduced us to activism as a child. Since we were so far away from the South and couldn't participate in those historic marches, my mother would take my sister and me to downtown San Francisco and have us participate in the marches here. Those marches made an impact on my life and since then, I've always been heavily involved within my community. Before attending SF State College and joining the BSU, I 128

was active in the Black Students Association at San Francisco City College and also in

investigating the injustices of housing communities in San Francisco.

ASJ: I can appreciate that was an important background, which you were able to bring to

L your activism as a member to the student strike of 1968. As you know it is the 40t anniversary of that 1968 strike, which has impacted college academic programs across the country. Tell me a little about the strike from your perspective. How long did it take to plan it?

Dr. Thompson: It was a plan that came out of negotiations from La Raza and BSU as

well other student organizations on campus. We had tried to negotiate with the

administration but they were not hearing us or pretended not to hear us. Students were

frustrated and we knew we had to make a move.

ASJ: How did you all spread the word about the strike?

Dr. Thompson: At that time, there was a building on campus called the Gallery, over by where the student union is now. At the gallery, BSU members and other students used to perform poetry, sing, and dance, it was sort of like a lounge. Prior to the strike, the renowned poets [of the Black Arts Movement], Amiri Baraka and Sonia Sanchez had taught a few classes here at the college. We used their rich teachings to display our thoughts through poetry and other pieces of art. The gallery brought people from all 129

different backgrounds together, allowing announcements and information to be passed

easily because it was a place of student congregation.

ASJ: During the women's panel already referred to here, you mentioned you have

written about the strike.

Dr. Thompson: I've written a book about the strike called The Story o f the Strike in

which I take a look at the strike through a student's perspective, and how the strike was

a movement for college leadership. Currently, I'm working on a book that focuses on the strike through the lens of a scholar.

ASJ: This issue of the Black Studies Journal pays tribute to the student movement of 1968,

in particular the Black Students' initiative, and the impact it has had on our society. In recent news, we have heard and seen stories of the injustice of the Jena 6, the genocide of black

Africans in Sudan and the murder of Sean Bell by the NYPD. With all the injustices that are continuing to affect our community, do you think young people should be making more noise and creating another college movement to demand change? Are the days of the student movements dying?

Dr. Thompson: The dynamics of student activism has changed because it's now hard to get people involved. There is a separation within our community and a successful movement cannot build off of division. The strike of 1968 was so successful because everyone was on one page. The La Raza students wanted the same educational justice that 130

the BSU wanted, the Third World Liberation Front wanted to see more students of color in school just as the American Indian Student Association and Asian American students did.

The strike survived because we were all working on a collective effort. Students must not get lost in the hype and overcome barriers and stereotypes in order to understand the history of the movements and the goal that the movement seeks to create. Students must not limit themselves and understand that together their voice is more powerful than any administration.

ASJ: Dr. Thompson, what you have shared in this interview is important to college students today. We know we can learn from the example of those of you who were members of the

BSU in the 1960s. Your commitment to activism brought about changes. This is evident in

San Francisco State University today being the only College of Ethnic Studies in the United

States. San Francisco State's student movement has a strong and respected legacy. From the work here came Black Studies departments and programs in colleges throughout the country. Your taking this time to share your insights and thoughts on the strike of 1968 and where we are today is greatly appreciated. I would like to thank you once again for taking the time to speak with me.

Dr. Thompson: Anytime. Thank you for listening. 131

Nia Carol Cornwell

Sharing in Prose and Poem

With an introduction by the editor

Introduction

Nia Carol Cornwell counts among the “Women of the Vanguard of the 1968 Strike.”

She participated on the panel by that title that was presented February 2008 in the Rosa

Parks room at San Francisco State University. Due to a schedule that made it necessary for

Ms. Cornwell to fly back to New York where she now lives, right after the conference, she could not be interviewed for this issue; however, literally just as we were going to press, we received an email from her in which she was just then able to get back to us sharing her prose and poem. When we put an urgent call in, the typesetter, who had already completed putting the journal together, was only able to add Ms. Cornwell’s “Sharing in Prose and

Poem” at the end of this issue. And as we really wanted her voice included, with her permission we got it in, just in the nick of time before printing. (This explains why her sharing is not included in the section in this issue that features the interviews of her peer group of 1968 strike, for surely that is where her voice must be heard as belonging.) 132

Ms. Cornwell’s sharing, though briefly put, is a huge gem in the class of a finely wrought delicate diamond. And this gems. Cornwell shares, is both a reflection on the charge given to, and heeded by past generations, as well as a charge and expectation of the present generation. That expectation resonates not only with numbers of the present BSU generation, but also with all people of conscience who have the will, spirit and audacity to brave taking the necessary action to win changes and rights that Black people have long struggled, with dignity, to attain. So read and enjoy her sharing that follows this introduction. 133

Nia Carol Cornwell

A Sharing in Prose and Poem

In the midst of the struggle we were not clear on the paths we would take. I can still remember going to Potrero Hill Theatre and seeing Danny Glover perform in A DAY of

Absence.

Now, I am thinking how our parents and grandparents may have felt as they saw the

Civil Rights movement unfolding—not knowing-but knowing still that in each generation there are seeds and tides of change.

“Now do the work” was what we were told: told this not in words, but in the deeds we saw our families do in the “midst of the storm.” No Doubt

For Fannie (my mom)

No doubt she thought as she

Saw daughters go to college

No doubt she thought as she heard the

Pages of time turn from can to must

From I did to we did to they can do

To her, to the mothers, to the fathers, to

the grandparents, to uncles and the aunts

to the “play mommas” and not quite biological

relatives

who taught us

what family

REALLY IS

“ WE are who we have been waiting for——---- 135

Chapter 5. Conclusion

I would like to pause and dedicate this work to Dhameera Ahmad, who made her transition in 2017. “Charlotta,” was the name I first knew her by, was a beautiful exceptional woman, and an activist in her own right. I remember meeting her in awe, as a freshman. At 18 years old she was already quoting from Fanon’s “ Wretched of the Earth,” and Mao Tse Tung’s, Little Red Book. You are truly missed, Dhameera!

In answer to my thesis statement: Describe your role in the 1968 BSU, student led strike as an active or passive participant. I have clearly illustrated that the core women of the BSU, in the womanist tradition of their ancestral sisters, were active participants of the student led strike of 1968. Ramona Tascoe, now Dr., Reverened Tascoe was instrumental in ending the strike, by meeting with then president of state, S.I. Hayakawa to negotiate the student demands. The “brothers,” towards the end of the student struggle, were banned from campus, and not allowed to return. (The “systems,” way of continuing the castration of the Black male; and creating divisions between the Black man and woman). In their absence however, the women continued the work by attending meetings with the administration and, working in any capacity they were needed. We were all young, gifted, Black and intelligent; and due to our innocence there was no way, anyone could have convinced us that our demands were an impossibility. To us, the sky was the limit! There was no time for passivity, one had to be active, as our sisters before us demanded.

And to our younger Black women, you have a gigantic job waiting ahead, as Alicia Garza and her co-founders of “Black Lives Matters” are well aware. It’s a low paying job with very little to none, fringe benefits. But the satisfaction and worthiness gained, is beyond words. As Sweet Honey in The Rock, sang years ago, “Those Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest!” 136

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ml#typesofinterview