In 1976 Barbara Jordan, Congresswoman from Texas, became the first African American woman to deliver a keynote address at a major party convention in the US. She was aware of the significance and symbolism of the moment. Referencing the first Democratic convention of 1832, she said, “A lot of years passed since 1832, and during that time it would have been most unusual for any national political party to ask a Barbara Jordan to deliver a keynote address.” For Jordan, her presence at the convention was “evidence that the American Dream need not be forever deferred.”
Barbara Jordan was a keynote speaker for the Democratic National Convention in 1976. She mentioned that about 144 years ago that the members of the Democratic Party first met in convention to select a presidential candidate; since then, the democrats have continued to meet once every four years and nominate a presidential candidate. The convention is a continuation of that tradition; but, there is one thing that is something different that night – Barbara Jordan was the keynote speaker. In 1832, no one would have asked Barbara Jordan to deliver the speech, especially if it was a woman. She didn’t want to spend during her speech – having the time to praise the accomplishments of the Democratic and attacking the Republicans – and she didn’t
Fannie Lou Hamer, a radical woman, rallied black women to help support the black man in their effort to liberate all people by organizing protest and other public demonstrations. Despite being the youngest of twenty children in a family of sharecroppers, Hamer became one of the most prominent black woman during the Civil Rights Movement. Rather than restricting herself to the house, she sought a platform to ensure that the concerns of black people were heard by mainstream America. Hamer’s candid rhetoric made it difficult for people to ignore her message. In “The Special Plight and Role of Black Women” Hamer states that black women “are organizing [themselves] now, because [they] don’t have any other choice” because of the need to bring justice to America (Hamer 398). It was no longer enough to manage the house while the black man fights for equality; black women have a duty to support the black man to bring liberation to all people. As a result, black women activists made themselves visible whether that was by organizing protests and other public demonstrations, contributing to the intellectual movement through their writing, or obtaining political power through elected seats or negotiating with
"If the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question American. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off of the hook because of our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings in America?" Fannie Lou Hammer before the Democratic National Convention, 1964. Fannie Lou Hamer is best known for her involvement in the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC). The SNCC was at the head of the American voter registration drives of the 1960's. Hamer was a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Freedom Party (MFDP), which ultimately succeeded in electing many blacks to national office in the state of Mississippi.
Mills was a journalist and author who revived the nearly-lost stories of women journalists and civil rights icons. Fannie Lou Hamer was an American voting rights activist, and a leader in the Civil Rights Movements. What she accomplished was encouraging blacks to vote. For example, in the book it states how Fannie Lou marched in a voter-registration demonstration outside the Forrest Country Courthouse in Hattiesburg Mississippi, in 1963. Also, Lou and two other women Victoria Gray, and Annie Devine stood up against the entrenched Mississippi Congressional delegation in
the speech “With Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer,” Malcolm affirms that because the black man is denied the right to vote in the south of the forty-six committees that had control the foreign and domestic direction of the country in 1964 twenty-three were in the hands of Southern racists. Another account concerning voting in the south, Malcolm
As the state elections of 1898 approached, the Fusion party was not thriving as well as it had been, when preparing for the last election. The Democratic party was preparing to defeat the Republicans in the election and were being led by Furnifold Simmons, the party chairman. He did a great deal of organizing and campaigning in an attempt to have Democrats regain power over the city. Simmons worked hard to prevent “negro denomination”, a fear that many white segregationists had at the time, they worried that if African Americans gained too much power in government, eventually they would take over. In reality, African Americans only wanted a say in how they were governed and wanted to be treated equally under the law. To conquer this fear that many white Democrats possessed, they planned to take over the government and run any influential African Americans out of town, to somewhere that they would no longer influence and encourage people to stand up for equal
The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was an American political party founded around the end of April of 1964. Led by Fannie Lou Hamer, there goal was to contest the state's all white Democratic Party, during the civil rights movement. Black and white Mississippians organized with assistance from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Council of Federated Organizations, to challenge the legitimacy of the white only Democratic Party. For years, the blacks in Mississippi had been denied their rights to participate in the electoral process. The group wanted to run several candidates for the Senate and Congressional elections on June 2, 1964. The group began to protest the Democratic Party who wanted to seat an all-white delegation
American journalist Clare Boothe Luce writes a speech to the Women’s National Press Club about how the press sacrifices sensationalist stories. Luce’s introduction talks about how the American press is wrong and how she tries to address the problem. She starts off by tells the other journalist how she is happy, but the audience makes her unhappy and challenged. This shows her hard work in writing and how the press lacks in writing true stories.
The right to vote for African American became difficult during the time because the northern didn’t want to consider the blacks as equal to the society. As Frederick Douglass, has once stated “Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.” African American fought their way to gain their right to vote is by coming together, free blacks and emancipated slaves, to create parades, petition drives to demand, and to organize their own “freedom ballots.” As a free African American, they except the same respect as the whites and nothing
Thank you very much for your generosity! Honestly, there are no words to accurately express my humble gratitude for this remarkable gift offered by you, Marion and Anne Williams. I'm soon to be an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, and I plan to both major in Astronautical Engineering and minor in Computer Science. Ever since my early childhood, I've always been fascinated by the unknowns of space. For instance, it's quite hard to imagine looking at something as massive as Jupiter when you're only given images on Google. Although the images are tremendous, just looking at the planet with your very own eyes could make an astronaut out of anyone. Yet, I'm not actually looking forward to be an astronaut. It's been my dream to work at NASA, but it's
The session that I attended was Dolores Huerta speech, which was very interesting. Dolores Huerta was born on April 10, 1930, she is a labor leader and civil rights activist who, along with Cesar Chavez, co-founded the national Farmworkers association, which later became the United Farm Workers (UFW). Huerta has received numerous awards for her community service and advocacy for workers, immigrants, and women’s rights. She is truly a leader, working tirelessly to help the poor and women and children. She talks about war, genocide, Mass incarceration, and poverty. During her participation in non-violent protest she was arrested 22 times trying to make changes in society. Her main question was what can we do as people to solve things in the
Three Years after “Speech before Congress” was delivered by Carrie Chapman Catt, a well-known leader of the women 's suffragist movement were women granted the right to vote and receive all rights as citizens. Catt’s speech was a major stepping stone for Congress to pass the 19th amendment. She was able to deliver her speech in a manner, which was persuasive to congress because it encompassed all the rhetorical appeals. Not only did she describe benefits to enfranchising women, she also spoke to the patriotism of her audience to further her cause. Catt crafted her argument by presenting herself with authority and knowledge, she also used undeniable logic by referring historical precedence, and she evoked sympathy in her audience by describing the trials of disenfranchised women to create a powerful argument.
Relevance Statement: According to the CDC, 62% of women of reproductive age are currently using a contraceptive. This number has drastically risen over the years as a result of advanced medicine and availability to all women. This would not have been possible without the work and dedication of Margaret Sanger.
It was a time of conflict, excitement, and confusion in the United States. And this was also “Black Power” of the Civil Rights Movement. Moody at that time was a member of NAACP. She was involved in her first sit-in, and her social science professor, John Salter, who was in charge of NAACP asked her to be the spokesman for a team that would sit-in at Woolworth’s lunch counter (Moody 1968, 286). Although she could go to jail for this, but she still agreed. After that, she joined CORE and continued to fight for the voting rights (Moody 1968, 311). Following passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, the struggle for racial justice moved to the next battleground: voting rights in the Deep South. The campaign was already under way in places like Selma, Alabama, where local activists, facing intense white resistance, asked Martin Luther King, Jr., and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference for support (Ayers 2010, 780). Black voter registration in the South was one of the great accomplishments of the civil rights movement. Within months of its passage, more than 2 million black southern were registered to vote. Most supported the Democratic Party of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, which had endorsed the cause of civil rights (Ayers 2010, 782).