Anna Julia Cooper

Alice Walker speaks of her mother and grandmothers’ dark pasts of slavery and discrimination throughout their lives. Although women through the years have had it tough, colored women have and continue to have a deeper struggle within society. Alice Walker’s essay is inspiring and heartwarming because it tells of how the women in their lives have found beauty within a dark part of history. Her mother although had little, found a sense of identity with the joy of her own vibrant garden. She speaks a lot about how many people of color continued to keep their identity and spirituality in a time where they could have been discouraged. I think that Walker’s essay is really eye opening because so many women have struggled before us to pave the way for women of all

In Elise Johnson McDougald’s essay “The Task of Negro Womanhood,” she elaborates on the difficulties of being a black, working woman in society. In order to understand the struggles of a black woman in America, “one must have in mind not any one Negro woman, but rather a colorful pageant of individuals, each differently endowed” (McDougald, 103). This is because to be able to understand the problems they face as individuals one must think of black women as a collective unit. McDougald focuses on the women living in Harlem because they are more free and have more opportunity to succeed than in the rest of the United States. Though they are considered more

To be a woman meant that one had no say in regards to political affairs or in government making decisions. If being a woman had limitations, imagine what a black woman experienced, as they were considered less than human and mistreated more than any other female from any different background. In “A Plea for the Oppressed”, Lucy Stanton, one such black woman, tried to avail her people’s plight upon an audience of white women, to support the antislavery and reform cause.

Frances Ellen Walker Harper published a wealth of short stories, poetry, essays, and novels in the middle to late 1800s. She was born into a politically active, free black family, attended her uncle’s school, and became the first female teacher at the Union Seminary. Harper’s unusually comfortable class-status and extensive education allowed her to become a skilled writer on topics that interested her, such as politics, civil rights, feminism, and religion. Harper used her skill and passion to become economically and emotionally independent. In fact, much of her work echoes her identity as a middle class woman of color who supported herself through writing. However, this nature of independence was unusual for a woman in the 1800s, especially a black woman. Though Harper’s portrayal of strong, independent womanhood is a much needed depiction of women, Harper is unqualified to establish expectations for black women in the 1800s.

Glenda Gilmore, in her essay “Forging Interracial Links in the Jim Crow South,” attempts to tackle the charged concepts of feminism and race relations during the infamous Jim Crow era. Her analysis focuses on both the life and character of a black woman named Charlotte Hawkins Brown, a highly influential member of the community of Greensboro, North Carolina. Brown defied the odds given her gender and race and rose to a prominent place in society through carefully calculated interracial relations. Gilmore argues that in rising above what was expected of her as a black woman, Brown was forced to diminish her own struggles as a black woman, and act to placate

As a well-known civil rights activist of her time, Ida B. Wells began her journey to her ultimate ideologies when she was a young girl. Growing up as a slave in Mississippi, her access to education was limited to learning at the Freedman’s Bureau schools. Throughout her life she followed the well paved pathway of her father, the town “race” man, to lawful justice for all citizens, not just African American or white. The contending journalist didn’t lose sight of her family, African American community or her commitment to serving God, but allowed her strong belief in human rights and equality to help her grow stronger as a member of her society.

I learned how Ida B. Wells-Barnett started her life. Born as a slave, orphaned at 16, she became a teacher to support her surviving brothers and sisters. With the difficult circumstances brought upon her, it took an amazing amount of determination for her to fight for black civil rights and women’s rights in the 19th century. In a more civilized age, it’s harder to witness the courage she represented for the disadvantaged.

A major goal of all three intellectuals discussed above is (or was) to further the status of African Americans through learning. Anna Julia Cooper was both an educator and an orator. She received her master's degree in 1884 from Oberlin College and went on to work as a teacher at Wilberforce College, St. Augustine's College, and the Washington D.C. Colored High School. In 1893 she was a keynote speaker at the World's Congress of Women. According to Shirley Logan in We Are Coming, The Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth-Century Black Women, Cooper's speaking skills were finely tuned to reach many different audiences, and she used her rhetoric to appeal to the common sense of her spectators

Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune has paved the way for african-american adolescents, like myself, to live a life of greater quality. Being born of slaves, no one imagined that her values would manifest into a prestigious Historically Black College/University. From toiling in fields with her family, to becoming the president of an accredited college was a huge accomplishment for blacks at the time. Mary Bethune’s prosperity didn’t conclude with the commencement of her own distinguished university, but she became a national leader. The National Association of Colored Women became popularized for advocating the enhancement of colored women in society. In this organization, Bethune served as Florida chapter president from 1917 to 1925. Her duties included:

Susan B. Anthony once said, “I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand.” (Brainy Quote) Susan B. Anthony is a recognizable name, but one that is not rightfully credited for the equal society we live in today. During her time, “equal” was a feared term for many American citizens, and at the mention of this word, many turned their heads. To some, equal meant white, middle-class men giving away their to control to those who were “unfit” to have any sort of decision-making role in society; women and African American’s. Whether it was her Quaker upbringing or her inborn strength, Susan B. Anthony refused to live in a world where any type of person was treated unequally. Although she started as an abolitionist and temperance movement activist, she went on to become one of the most influential suffragists in United States History. Susan B. Anthony’s fiery passion and courage regarding the equal rights of all people, regardless of gender or color, started a revolutionary movement that impacted not only the United States, but the entire world.

     Alice Walker is an African American essayist, novelist and poet. She is described as a “black feminist.”(Ten on Ten) Alice Walker tries to incorporate the concepts of her heritage that are absent into her essays; such things as how women should be independent and find their special talent or art to make their life better. Throughout Walker’s essay entitled “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens,” I determined there were three factors that aided Walker gain the concepts of her heritage which are through artistic ability, her foremothers and artistic models.

The first time I heard “Ar'nt I a Woman?” was freshman year of high school, during our annual African-American Heritage assembly. The crowd, always restless and inattentive, chattered and snapchatted away as the speech and presenter were announced. A lanky girl shuffled on stage, folding in on herself as she walked, arrived center stage, and began to speak. As she went on, her spine straightened, her murmurs turned to phrases enunciated so clearly her tongue seemed to be working three times as hard as a normal person’s. By the end of the speech, she had the undivided attention of the audience, all holding their breath because of how passionately and honestly she presented this glimpse into life as a black woman. Both Chapter 4 of A Shining Thread of Hope by Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson, and Sojourner Truth’s “Ar'nt I a Woman?” speech serve the same general goal: showcasing the mistreatment of African American Women by society . While Truth’s speech is from her perspective, full of rage and frustration, A Shining thread gives her experiences important context. .

Society continues to nurture these depriving situations and demonstrate lack of concern towards black women by not celebrating them for the roles they played in the movements. Taylor (1998) asserted that, “despite the fact that the most celebrated leaders of the modern civil rights movements were men, African American women participated at every stage in the struggle for justice and equality” (239). Although black women were not in public eyes during these movements, it was their vision and organizing roles they played that helped in the progression of many liberation movements.

Julia Stewart is a very successful business woman. She identifies the significance of crediting employees for their work and thereby increasing their morale. I would love to work for Julia Stewart in a management position. I have held a few jobs in the health care setting. Only two of those positions can I honestly say that I really enjoyed my job. Looking back to those jobs I enjoyed best, I discovered most of my supervisor’s management traits were similar to Ms. Stewart’s. Rarely is a person trained to perform a job perfectly after being hired on a new job. All employees including management must undergo a training period before they are proficiently effective.

Julia Stewart in my opinion is an excellent role model of generating employee engagement and motivating the employees in her company’s restaurants. In the case study she used goal setting to achieve the performance outcome goal. She recognized how one employee perfect proportioned a taco and set that example as the targeted goal for all employees to follow (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013). By asking another member of the prep line, “Did you see how well this was done” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013)? Another role model example, she illustrates is when she stand in the middle of the kitchen and ask “Who did the walk-in here today” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013)? And she would give the employee who performed the exceptional good a compliment and gather the