Black Women's Liberation Movements

At the height of the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968), women played a big part in not only keeping the crusade alive, but also played a big part in energizing the masses to continue the long and arduous struggle against the seemingly impenetrable institutions of power which disenfranchised African-Americans and regarded their humanity as nothing more than mere pieces of property owned by others. Women like Coretta Scott King, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Septima Clark and countless mothers, sisters, and daughters proved to be important

The Civil Rights Movement and Women’s Suffrage Movement are historically influential events that are still perpetuating different convictions in today’s society. The Civil Rights Movement established a foundation of equality and civil liberties for African Americans while the Women’s Suffrage Movement granted women the right to vote and contributed a sense of equality among genders. Both movements were in need of empathy and aid in order to bring about equality and change, in which were difficult to find with the majority of the appropriate public being white males who disagreed with the movements. The activists of both the Civil Rights Movement and Women’s Suffrage Movement were on the wrong side of public empathy, yet the discrimination of the public view, the protesting of the victims, and the equal rights being fought for demanded a change in the conduct and the way in which the public empathized with these people.

Patricia Hill Collins’s work, Black Feminist Thought seeks to center Black Women into intersectionalist thought, addressing the power struggles that face them not only due to their race but also to the gender. Masculine rhetoric and powerful male leaders such as Huey P. Newton and Eldridge Cleaver have overshadowed Black Women’s stories, both in and out of the Civil Right Rights/Black Power

The gender bias found in relation to leadership in the civil rights movement often excludes African-American women’s contributions as being of less importance and prominence; however, in hindsight informal leaders were on equal level with formal leaders and bridge leaders served an important function resulting from exclusion.

Many black women were involved in the woman suffrage movement. From Sojourner Truth, a former slave, to Rosa Parks, these women have been fighting for the rights of women. All women were the same except for one thing, the color of their skin. The color of people skin determined how people view others. Black women had strong support for woman’s suffrage, but sometimes had to deal with discrimination within the suffrage movement itself. Black women scandalous behavior was judged and meant differently from white women. Scandalous had a different racial undertone in our society.

From the movement's inception, black women were at the forefront, organizing communities, church congregations, and Civil Rights organizations. However, despite such committed involvement to improving the conditions of black Americans, black female movement participants encountered sexist treatment from their black male counterparts and mainstream society.

The article titled, Black Women Thought; Matrix of Domination, by Patricia Hill Collins explores the oppression of African-American women. While there is also a theme of individual empowerment, Collins’ ends the article by stating, “only collective action can effectively generate lasting social transformation of political and economic institutions” (cite). I believe Collins’ motivation for this article was to bring awareness and to inspire change.

In an attempt to define Black Feminism, Collins clarifies that it must “avoid the idealist position that ideas can be evaluated in isolation from the groups that create them (Collins 385).” This clarification forms her basis for why Black Feminism is necessary, and who it serves. Thinking about feminism historically, the concerns of black women were pushed aside in favor of fighting sexism; a notable example occurs within the Suffrage movement, where votes for white women were prioritized over women of color in order to push such legislation through. And even when feminism began looking at other social injustices, such as racism and class issues, often only prominent feminists were invited to the discussion. What resulted was, and often continues to be, a problem of white women speaking for oppressed people. It’s impossible, Collins argues, to have Black Feminist thought without examining the experiences and positions of African American women. Therefore, Black Feminism must be a movement that “encompasses theoretical interpretations of Black women’s reality by those who live in it (Collins 386).” However, such a definition brings about many questions:

The role of black women was often relegated to menial tasks. However, the vital role that women played in black radicalism cannot be denied. Had women been understood beyond threats to black manhood, their roles as leaders could have taken black self-determination further. Their lack of leadership played a part in the decline of organizations such as the BPP.

In an attempt to define Black Feminism, Collins clarifies that it must “avoid the idealist position that ideas can be evaluated in isolation from the groups that create them (Collins 385).” In reality, this forms her basis for why Black Feminism is necessary, and who it serves. Thinking about feminism historically, the concerns of black women were pushed aside in favor of fighting sexism, most notably during the Suffrage movement. And even when feminism began looking at other social injustices, such as racism and class issues, only prominent feminists were invited to the discussion. What resulted was, and often continues to be, a problem of white women speaking for oppressed people. It’s impossible, Collins argues, to have Black Feminist thought without examining the experiences and positions of African American women. Therefore, Black Feminism must be a movement that “encompasses theoretical interpretations of Black women’s reality by those who live in it (Collins 386).” However, such a definition brings about many questions: who’s experiences are valued, how do black women take their voice back, and how can they center feminist thinking on their own unique standpoint?

As African-American women address social issues that are important to their life experiences, such as class and race, instead to acknowledge “common oppression” of gender inequality, they are often criticized by “white bourgeois feminists” (hooks, 2000). Their ability to gain any form of equality within society is tarnished by such groups as they develop a “fear of encountering racism” from simply joining this movement (hooks, 2000). As white men, black men, and white women oppress them, their issues are often ignored due to reoccurring stereotypes and myths that claim black women are strong, independent, and “superhuman” (hooks, 2000). It becomes extremely difficult to seek liberation and equity within a “racist, sexist, and classist” society, as their gender and race causes them to be at the “bottom of the occupational ladder” and “social status” (hooks, 2000, pg. 16). As black women are perceived to demonstrate strength and dynamic qualities as white women perpetrate the image of being

The Women’s Liberation Movement greatly impacted Australia and the United States throughout the 60’s and 70’s carrying on to the 90’s. Without the Women’s Liberation Movement women wouldn’t have received changes in laws primarily regarding employment impacting on them moving forward in terms of equal opportunities. However there is still a there is still process to be made concerning employment and social roles for women to have equal rights as men. The Women’s Liberation Movement started in the 60’s during the second wave of feminism. Even though the 70’s were a time of change, both Australia and the United States saw women remaining in low status roles and staying primarily in the domestic sphere. The 90’s however saw a dramatic change in the amount of women employed and working more so in the domestic sphere.

African American women experienced the civil rights movement, Bernard and Onwubiko state that people, especially men, did not want black women to rise up out of oppression of their society and succeed (57). The authors declare that “the freedom for black women and the poor generally in the Americas was transformed to encompass the notions of anti-imperialism, equal opportunity and justice,” which before in the decades, African American women did not have social, political economic and legal freedoms (Bernard and Onwubiko 59). Black women back then were not paid

While racism reached its peak at the turn of the 20th century, the black community was not short behind to start fighting back. Blacks were dehumanized to the point that the murders of blacks were “considered an acceptable control on black people, so much that the pictures were turned into postcards that were forwarded by the U.S. Postal Service with captions like, “This is how we do them down here.” (Kelly p.4) Though many African Americans dangerously protested and took a stand of bravery, not all of them made history. A few of these people were not as popular as Martin Luther King Jr, but there brave acts will have influenced the movement for equality and spurred on other African Americans to do the same. The descriptions of the way blacks were treated in this time were nothing short of being treated like an animal. Black women took the leading role to act out against segregation, since black males were beaten just for being near the “genteel” white woman, and were called rapists.

Black women in particular were at an intersection of the black community and the female one. They had to fight for rights on both ends. For instance, when the birth control, “the pill,” was introduced, black men did not want black women to take it in fear of condemning their black community. They believed it a system of which the black community could be repressed once again because their population could potentially dwindle a tiny bit (Robinson). In this regard, these women were being controlled in two ways, in regards to her reproductive rights and race. They suffered the brunt of the two movements and learned that their issues were different of that of their peers. Although black men were being empowered (slowly), black women would still not get the same justices or have the same opportunities. In a comparison to white women, black women would have even less opportunities. Women of color learn that for their problems, they needed to find their own solutions and that could potentially mean a whole separate fight from that of the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power Movement and Women’s