Thank You Mam

“I put out the very best that was in. I often state I ‘m not here for myself but for others coming behind me” These are the powerful words of one strong dedicated woman, who devoted her life to helping others and who’s legacy paved the way for other women and African Americans. Felice Hill Gaines was an educator, devoted worker, a scholar, and a trail blazer.

Ida B. Wells, an African-American woman, and feminist, shaped the image of empowerment and citizenship during post-reconstruction times. The essays, books, and newspaper articles she wrote, instigated the dialogue of race struggles between whites and blacks, while her personal narratives, including two diaries, a travel journal, and an autobiography, recorded the personal struggle of a woman to define womanhood during post-emancipation America. The novel, _THEY SAY: IDA B. WELLS AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF RACE_ , provides an insight into how Ida B. Wells's life paralleled that of

At the end of the story, the grandmother only pleads for her life and never for her son Bailey or his family. “You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you?” (O’Connor 192).The mother never showed no remorse of her son’s death even after the other two men came back with Bailey’s shirt and then took his wife and daughter. She never pleaded for the men to stop and spare their lives. The daughter June Starr selfish characters are observed when she believes her way of living is right by stating to Red Sammy’s wife “I wouldn’t live in a broken-down place like this for a million bucks! (O’Connor 189). For a very young girl she carried an arrogant attitude that was never fixed by her parents.

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.

An End to the Neglect of the Problem of the Negro Woman by Claudia Jones

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.

If Jasper Jones hadn’t shown me the cigarette burns on his shoulders just hours before, if I hadn’t touched their ugly pink pucker with my fingertips, I wouldn’t have suspected this man to be the monster he was’ (p. 160) Charlie’s mother, Ruth, cultivates her image as a good mother and citizen, member of the CWA and volunteer for all manner of civic events. She demands obedience and respect from Charlie and is capable of a quasi-hysterical response when she doesn’t receive it. Yet she is carrying on a clandestine affair with an unnamed man from the back seat of a car. Charlie’s disappearance compromises Ruth’s image: ‘I’d shattered the facade, I’d sullied the family name and her repute. Tongues were wagging. Aspersions were being cast like dandelion spores on hot gossipy winds. The CWA brigade and the badminton babblers were tutting like vultures. I was no longer a model child and she was no longer a model mother. And a snide, petty part of me was thrilled about it, almost proud’ (p. 198-199) When Charlie finds his mother in a compromising position with a man who is not his father it shifts the power balance between them (p. 244). At this moment, Ruth loses her moral authority over Charlie and in some ways Charlie ceases to be a ‘child’. He must assume responsibility for his own moral stance. Pete Wishart, Laura and Eliza’s father, is probably the most hypocritical character in the novel. Whenever Charlie mentions him, he almost invariably remarks that he is

Throughout a life that stretched from slavery into her civil rights movement, Anna Julia Cooper defended the rights of all people to dignity, education, and respect. As an educated, competent, independent woman, she faced the double challenge of being African American and female in a society that was deeply racist and sexist, but with confidence and elegance, she challenged society’s assumptions about her. Her life was dedicated to the education of all people, but especially to taking care of the minds of black girls. “Throughout her activist adherence to her ideals, she provided an example of individual excellence rendered incandescent by service to the human community” (Berson, 1994).

Lugenia Burns Hope was a very successful women of her time. Even though she is only remembered for one of her many great actions she still had a huge impact on women’s and African Americans rights before the civil rights movement. She helped out many African American children and to this day still has papers at Robert W. Woodruff library. Main Cited

The women who we all think so highly of did not have a great starting out. Born on January 26, 1892 in Atlanta, Texas in a one-room, dirt-floored cabin to her parents, George and Susan, who were illiterate and children of slaves. Attempting to turn their

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 a slave to her own family, but to be able to enjoy the world as men 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.

Her work experience and historical knowledge is clear, and her historical facts and figures can be checked using the many primary and secondary sources she sites in her bibliography. However, she does tend to focus on minute details of the lives of the women she discusses that are of lesser importance than their achievement or political lives, such as the explanation of Felton’s husband’s career and political viewpoints. However, her narrative gives insight into the differing values of white and black women at the time and what was seen to be acceptable for a woman, and a woman of color, to say and do, as well as the consequences they faced for defying racism, male-dominance and widespread

She lost another love by the name of Oluf, could not find much work, and lost hard-earned money through a bad business investment. After all this peril she took Russell and Doris and moved to Baltimore. Another move equaled more stress, less money, and more struggling to get by. With what seemed to be the world against her, she made it. She remarried, bought a house, and became the success she demanded of herself. Every step of the way Russell was exposed to all the ups and downs. His mother’s life during those times shaped and influenced his own.

Everyone has difficulties and tragedies in life, some more than others. Though when people show compassion, it makes your spirits rise and make your challenges more bearable. In the short story, “Thank you, Ma’am” by Langston Hughes, Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones, a woman whose purse has been an attempted target by a boy, shows the theme of compassion with an overflowing amount of it. The boy, Roger, learns throughout the story that compassion is very important, and his true personality is revealed by some woman he doesn't even know.

Clarissa is trying to arrange a party to celebrate the fact that Richard has won a literary award, but is getting little help from Richard's ex-lover, Louis. As she labors to help Richard through another day, he wonders if his life is worth the unending struggle. In the end, it is the individual who must determine their own destiny.