Constance Baker Motley's Influences On A Law Career

A brilliant woman once said, “I believe if the white and colored people could get together and be left alone, they would understand each other and consequently love each other” (Josephine Baker). Originally born Freda Josephine McDonald, Baker lived an oppressed early life as an African American girl with little to hardly any money. At the time, African Americans faced hardships due to the white supremacists that believed dark-colored people would not be of equal value to caucasians. Baker decided that she could overcome her persecution by moving to France and making herself into an idol. She was an independent and courageous woman who opened the doors for equality to many. Josephine Baker greatly impacted America due to her influence on women; therefore, leading to more women involved in education and working, her civil rights speeches that opened opportunities for equal races, as well as advocating for equality among men and women.

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

African American women have long been stereotyped, discriminated against and generalized in this country. They have had to face both being black in America while also being a woman in America. African American women encountered and still do encounter double discrimination of both sex and race (Cuthbert, 117). Women like Elise Johnson McDougald, Marion Vera Cuthbert and Alice Dunbar-Nelson all tried to shed light on what it was like to be an African American woman living in the 20th century yet literature often portrayed them as emotional, hypersexual, unintelligent and of lesser worth. The literature highlighted that African American women have to serve both their employer and their husbands and families. They are not supposed to have an opinion or stand up for themselves, especially to a white man. ***Concluding sentence?

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.

During 1850, American society was catching fire in terms of influential women and men whom would set out to change history. Elizabeth Cady Stanton being denied entrance at a London Convention due to her gender inspired the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, which discussed women 's rights as well as introduce Sojourner Truth as a speaker. Sojourner accounted her life as a slave laborer, who could do any job better that a man, thus giving reason to why women should be treated equally to men rather than a subordinate. Fredrick Douglass, a former slave and eminent human rights leader in the abolition movement, was the first black citizen to hold a high U.S. government rank. Then there is Celia, a slave, whose story rattled America to its core through the raising of fundamental questions regarding a slave’s right to fight back against traumatizing years of abuse.

Sojourner Truth once remarked, in reply to an allusion to the late Horace Greeley, "You call him a self-made man; well, I am a self-made woman” (Gilbert, v). This quote digs deeper into the leadership of what Sojourner Truth’s journey was all about. Truth’s greatest commitments for women’s suffrage stood alongside of her remark to Greely. No woman was just to be a housewife or slave to her own family, but to be able to enjoy the world as man did. Sojourner Truth was an important figure in American History because she helped create a pathway for the ideas of feminism and the justices of racial equality.

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.

Patricia Roberts Harris was born on May 31,1924 and died of breast cancer on March 23,1985. Harris did a lot in her 60 years of living. She was the first African American woman to hold a position in Cabinet, serve as an Ambassador, and head a law school. Harris fought hard for fair housing and employment under the Carter Administration as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

In Cooper’s universe, every right was based on responsibility. The opportunities that she sought for black girls and boys would provide them with better tools with which to serve their people. “Ultimately, her proud, demanding feminism offered to black men a stronger comrade in a partnership struggling to improve the lives of all African Americans” (Berson, 1994). Although her life was privileged in relation to those of the

If I could have a conversation with any person in human history, my first choice would be the woman that stated, “The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, ‘It's a girl.’” Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm, born on November 30, 1924, and passed on January 1, 2005, was the first African-American woman to serve in Congress and to seek a nomination for the U.S. Presidency. She ran, in spite of she coined, her “double handicap” in reference to her blackness and womanhood. Mrs. Chisholm broke barriers in the political field that has allowed young women like me to one day dream of stepping foot in the Capitol building or the Oval Office, as a President or otherwise.

Lars Eighner writes an article in The Texas Observer called “Bigmama Didn’t Shop at Woolworths” that gives us insight into the life of a family living in Bryan Texas. Bigmama lets us know about her life in which she is unable to shop at regular stores and is followed around to make sure she does not steal anything. Bigmama has to teach her granddaughter about this way of life, advising Sunny Nash about the term “colored” in hopes that Sunny would not live a life of embarrassment or make a mistake and get herself killed. (Eighner 29) We are shown how Bigmama has to make decisions and influence the youth to be aware of what the world is like so that her family would survive. In 1946, Viola Johnson receives a letter from Louisiana State University informing her that the State of Louisiana has separate colleges for whites and colored students and that she would not be admitted to their medical college. (Patterson) Johnson would then write a letter informing LSU that she would be taking them to court in this issue. As time passed, Johnson would attend the southern Louisiana College for colored students and then request again to be admitted to the Medical college at LSU. Being denied again, Johnson would be taken on as the “ideal plaintiff” for the NAACP and go to court against LSU for violating the 14th amendment. She would lose the court battle against LSU, but that did not end her determination. Viola Johnson, now Doctor Viola Coleman would move to Midland, Texas and assist in the desegregation process of Midland Medical school. Viola left a legacy to her children, who knew nothing of what their mother did until she passed, to stand for what they believe in and stay headstrong in this life against unequal rights. (Patterson) In a news article from the 1940s, The Baird Star, reads

Emilie Davis and Lillian Gilbreth may have been born approximately four decades apart and on opposite sides of the United States, yet these two courageous women established a method to succeed in a time when women were not viewed as equals to men. Although Davis and Gilbreth were influential female figures, they came from utterly different backgrounds and social classes. Not much is known about Emilie Davis and her upbringing. Davis was born in 1839 and the majority of her childhood was shaped by slavery. In May of 1878, Lillian Gilbreth was born in Oakland California to a social class very different than Emilie Davis’. In the 19th century and well into the 20th century, women were not treated equally and faced discrimination regularly.

Many of my life experiences have given me a glimpse of what it means to be in the margins of society. My family’s history of racism and poverty, my father’s physical disability, my experiences as a woman, and growing up in the diverse Bay Area with friends, mentors, coaches, and teachers from different backgrounds has opened my eyes to the disparities in society. When I was sixteen I had a particularly salient experience that awoke my heart and mind to the ideas of social justice. I was in Memphis, Tennessee for a basketball tournament and on our day off we went to the Civil Rights Museum, which was built around the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. We saw the counters from sit-ins, buses from the Freedom Ride, and learned about the systematic oppression of Jim Crow. I was confused by the hate and anger I saw but found myself clenching my fists with rage at the injustice of it all. Yet, what was even more powerful was sitting in the parking lot with my team and listening to our assistant coach, who was an African-American man, share his experiences of racism, how it shaped his identity, and his fears for his two sons. Our head coach then shared about her experiences as lesbian and the ways in which she was continually denied rights because of her sexual orientation.

On March 15, 1933 Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York to Nathan and Celia Bader (Bio.com). Throughout her life, she faced much discrimination. She grew up in a time in America where women and other minorities weren’t always thought of as equals. For example, during her hearing before the Committee On the Judiciary United States Senate, Ginsburg talked about a sign she saw in Pennsylvania that had said “No Jews or dogs” when she was a teenager. Also during her hearing, she talked about how she felt about discrimination saying that it was something she always felt strongly about (U.S. Congress, 139). Despite the discriminations she was put up against, Ginsburg rose above them and became the first Jew and the second lady appointed to the Supreme Court.

Dorothy was not without resources or connections, and yet she had to go to great lengths to support her family. Due to racial discrimination and economic inequality, black families had to work harder than whites for less pay to ensure their children’s’ futures.