The uncovered achievements of woman :
Boadicea
Emma Goldman
The denial of a history as a tool of oppression
You may have or have not heard of the above women. They are a handful plucked from the history list on the internet.
One thing probably for certain you will never have heard is the names and stories of the members of the movements who supported them. Rosa parks The black woman who sat on the “for whites only ” front seat on the bus did not perform this action out of the blue. Rosa parks was part of a movement through the 40s and 50s that spanned America, and was made up of both young and old black Americans, each involved in the struggle for equality.
The young, black women, in the 60s, who sat at the lunch counters in white dinners refusing to move, being spat on, hit and worse.The black mothers, who suffered the abuse spent on the whole family from violent attacks to murder. These stories go untold but are the stuff that shapes much of the progressive notion of industrial society.
These are the stories of ordinary people who stood up to the power greedy tyrants who are a constant threat to our life and liberty. Non are more so worthy of admiration and recognition than the black activists in north America in the history of the last hundred years. Not only were they poor but constrained by the added burden of being black, being women and being separated by racism from the support and unification of other caucasian groups suffering the same poverty. This is to say nothing of their plight as they watched their children grow up in the same hostile climate. Such adversity needed strong women and active minds.
“Northerners know nothing at all about Slavery. They think it is perpetual bondage only. They have no conception of the depth of degradation involved in the word, SLAVERY; if they had, they would never cease their efforts until so horrible a system was overthrown.”
A WOMAN OF NORTH CAROLINA.
Other peoples histories tell us much about our own
By highlighting black Americans in the context of the history of human rights is not to deny the achievements of the men and woman of all nations who have struggled to make a better world for others to live in, or to ignore the present day situation.
The reason I focus on the history of black people in America, is, that there struggle for equality was and is fought within the confines of what is termed a free, western democracy. There plight illustrates all that is wrong with the white patriarchal society. The crimes committed by the state against a countries own people namely black Americans, further emphasizes and is proof of the extent of the crimes that the same governments will perpetrates on people outside its own borders in order to maintain power.
What do we have to learn from American people in the present climate of global insecurity ? This history of black people in America, especially in the progress in the struggle for human rights and in the emancipation of the poor, both black and white has hardly been touched upon. Yet, it contains within it a rich inspirational story much needed to be told. A story that may well give strength, hope and vision to a new class of people of all races who are beginning to feel the constrictions of powerful governing elites, that the black people of America, know and have experienced only to well.
_______Links_________________________
Harriet Tubman Tubman was given a piece of paper by a white neighbor with two names, and told how to find the first house on her path to freedom
Howard Zinn If those in charge of our society – politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television – can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.
A peoples history of the United States
Columbus wrote:
“As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.”The information that Columbus wanted most was: Where is the gold?
W. E. B. Du Bois Herein lie buried many things which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century. This meaning is not without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.
Dear President Bush,Today you called upon Congress to move quickly to amend the US Constitution, and set in Federal stone a legal definition of marriage. I would like to know why.
top