African American Women
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african american women These are African American women. They are women who work for social change. They are authors, filmmakers, activists and grandmothers. They are women who have made a difference, examples for all of us. Honoring them is vital in a place like Karen House Catholic Worker. Here, we hold up homeless women and their children, and work to educate ourselves about our own privilege that is the cause of so much injustice. Here, we are trying to build “a path from where we are to where we should be,” in the words of Peter Maurin. Educating ourselves about other races and cultures, working to dismantle structural racism, and building relationships are small but powerful ways we try and build that path. We share the same hope as author Regina Shands Stoltzfus: “I want my children to love their blackness, and understand that they come from a proud history of people who made things hap- pen, who contributed much to their society, who are beautiful and created in the image of God.” angela davis ngela charges. A A Davis is an massive in- academic and ternational activist who "Free An- works for racial gela Davis" and gender campaign led equality and for to her ac- prison abolition. Davis' political activ- quittal in 1972. Her books include the ism began as a youth in Alabama. In famous Are Prisons Obsolete? and 1969 she came to national attention Women, Race and Class. after being removed from her teach- ing position at UCLA as a result of "Imprisonment has become the re- her social activism and her member- sponse of first resort to far too many ship in the Communist Party. In of our social problems." 1970, she was placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List on false bell hooks ell hooks is an b internationally “I believe that this recognized intel- nation can only lectual and social heal from the activist. She has wounds of racism published over if we all begin to thirty books and love blackness. numerous schol- And by that I arly and mainstream articles, appeared in don't mean that we love only that which is several documentary films, and partici- best within us, but that we're also able to pated in various public lectures on the is- love that which is faltering, which is sues of race, class and gender. Ain’t I a wounded, which is contradictory, incom- Woman?: Black Women and Feminism plete.” was hooks’s first noted contribution to modern feminist thought. Written at the “If we want a beloved community, we age of 19, the book was named “One of the must stand for justice; have recognition twenty most influential women’s books in for difference without attaching difference the last 20 years” by Publisher’s Weekly. to privilege.” hooks' work is influenced by a variety of people, from abolitionist and feminist So- journer Truth to Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. Ella Baker As a girl growing up in North Carolina, Baker listened to her grandmother tell stories about slave revolts. She graduated from Shaw University in 1927 as class valedictorian. Baker worked for the NAACP for six years, and during the Civil Rights Movement, was instrumental in forming the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. SNCC was a decentralized organization that stressed direct-action tactics and encouraged women, the young, and the poor to take leadership positions. Baker believed in a grassroots model for change, rather than looking to a great leader to pilot the movement. An unsung hero of the Civil Rights Movement, Baker inspired a range of political organizations including the Black Panthers, Students for a Democratic Society, and many feminist groups. “I have always thought what is needed is the development of people who are inter- ested not in being leaders as much as in developing leadership in others.” “Give light and people will find the way.” Fannie lou hamer orn in founding the B Missis- Mississippi sippi, the Freedom De- youngest of mocratic Party 20 children at a time when in a family of slaves, Fannie Lou Hamer the Democratic Party of Mississippi did was both a voting rights activist and not allow Blacks. leader in the Civil Rights Movement. She was instrumental in organizing Mis- “I do remember, one time, a man came to sissippi’s “Freedom Summer” for the Stu- me after the students began to work in dent Nonviolent Coordinating Commit- Mississippi, and he said the white people tee, and made addresses in many major were getting tired and they were getting cities and colleges in the United States. tense and anything might happen. Well, Hamer was also instrumental in forming I asked him, ‘How long he thinks we had the farming cooperative, Freedom been getting tired?’ … All my life I’ve Farms, in Sunflower County, Missis- been sick and tired. Now I’m sick and sippi. Fannie is well-respected for tired of being sick and tired.” Janine Jackson anine about super- J Jackson predators. I is the pro- want truly gram direc- democratic tor of Fair- media because ness and public televi- Accuracy in sion just said Reporting (FAIR), and the co-host and that a family with lesbian mothers is unfit producer of FAIR's syndicated radio show to be acknowledged, on the network that CounterSpin-a weekly program airing on you and I pay for. And I want truly de- more than 130 U.S. stations. She writes mocratic media because if we had it, tens frequently about racism in the media, me- of thousands, perhaps 100,000 people who dia regulation, and media coverage of la- have died in Iraq might be alive today.” bor and economics. “I want truly democratic media because 45 million Americans don't have health insur- ance, and a lot of them think it's their fault. I want democratic media because black and brown kids go to jail because of what somebody read in the newspaper Malkia Cyril alkia the role media M Cyril is a plays in creating 30-year-old and perpetuating writer, organ- structural racism izer and media and class oppres- strategist. The sion is not a secon- Director of the dary issue. It is Youth Media central to building Council and co-founder of the Media Jus- an effective and relevant movement… tice Network, Malkia works with groups Marginalized communities care focused on racial and economic justice, and about media reform because our lives and youth empowerment in the San Fransisco our freedom are at stake. From hip-hop to Bay Area. advertising, media corporations stereotype and exploit the culture of youth and peo- “What remains both invisible and undeni- ple of color for profit, while those same able in the debate about U.S. media is the corporations use our families to create and colonial context of its birth … For people assemble the technology that makes them of color, women, queer people and young rich.” folks, there has never been a free press, and without racial, economic and gender justice, there never will be. Understanding Marian Wright Edelman earning educational op- L from the portunity, equal- example of her ity, justice, and parents, Marian hope. Wright Edel- man has never “It is absolutely stopped her bat- obscene that we tle for equality, are the sole re- freedom, and maining super- civil rights. She power, number is the founder of one in military the Children’s expenditures, Defense Fund, military exports, one of the na- military budget, tion’s strongest first in health voices for children and families. She was the technology, first in billionaires and million- first black woman admitted to the Mississippi aires, yet we let our children be the poorest Bar, and worked for both the NAACP Legal group of Americans. We have this booming Defense Fund, the Poor People’s March on economy and budget surplus, but there are Washington. A prolific author, lecturer, and 13.5 million poor children…” proud social agitator, Edelman has touched the lives of countless children by advocating for the basic necessities of success— Maya Angelou orn in St. Her current B Louis, Maya personal out- Angelou is an reach is to im- internationally prove condi- respected poet, tions for women writer and educa- in Developing tor. Her early life World, primar- was full of strug- ily in Africa. gle; she dropped out of high “A Brave and school for a pe- Startling Truth” riod of time and Written for the became a single 50th Anniversary mother at the age of the United of 16. She is the Nations: author of such best-selling titles as I …Love costs all we are Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (an and will ever be. autobiography), Gather Together in My Yet it is only love Name, and The Heart of a Woman. In the which sets us free. 1960's at the request of Dr. Martin Luther A Brave and Startling Truth… King, Jr., Angelou became the northern When we come to it coordinator for the Southern Christian We must confess that we are the possible Leadership Conference. Through her We are the miraculous, the true wonders work in script writing and directing, An- of this world gelou was a groundbreaker for black That is when, and only when women in the U.S. film industry. We come to it.” Rosa Parks osa Parks’ refusal to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, and R subsequent trial for this act of civil disobedience, triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The year-long boycott was one most success- ful mass actions against racial segregation in history, and helped ignite the Civil Rights Movement.