The Bridge Poem

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Ed. By Patricia Hill Collins. (New York: Routledge, 2000. ii, 336 pp. Cloth, $128.28, ISBN 0-415-92483-9. Paper, $26.21, 0-415-92484-7.)

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?

1-a) Women in African-American clubs in the early 20th century believed their role was to help the black race through the idea of racial upliftment. Uplift is the practice of economic and social self-help, where educated middle class club women taught working class black women how to improve their home life and education. This is achieved through concentrated social services work. Club’s such the National Association for Colored Women (NACW), the Tuskegee Woman’s Club and the Colored Women’s league held lectures that taught young girls virtues temperance and how to run needed community services. Club women such as Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells and Anna J. Cooper called for a “united black womanhood to solve the race’s problem” (Gray White,

I took an Uber the other day, and my driver, an African American woman, gave me a deeper insight on what I have learned in Chicano studies this quarter. It so happens she was writing a dissertation on minority women in leadership positions. What struck me the most about her findings was that one of the biggest determinants for minority women being able to be promoted to leadership positions was their partner’s race. If the woman’s partner was aso a minority the woman was less likely to be in a leadership position. Minority women in top leadership positions were mostly single, or married to white men. She believed minority men preferred women who stayed at home. I saw this as a consequence of minority women being marginalized by men within their communities. This was evident in founding of the Chicano movement and the exclusion of women from the beginning of the movement. The movement was founded to challenge ahistorical borders by recovering the Chicano narrative. The transition from Chicano to Chicano/a aimed to challenge the marginalization of women in the movement by acknowledging that women had been historically wounded and violated. The final transition to

This article discusses political realities that have researched scholarship, and action consequences in the field of Black studies. This includes the academy, a changing political economy, Black studies ideology, and Black studies for a new century, and it interconnectedness to the other issue, centering gender and interrogating the theory and practice of Black women’s studies.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary was one of the most influential African-American, female leaders during the Antebellum era. As an advocate for equality and integration, Cary contributed an immense amount of effort towards establishing the foundation of black livelihood. Though labeled inferior on the basis of ethnicity and gender, she was a fierce, headstrong, successful activist in a political world dominated by white males. This essay will analyze Cary’s approach to solidifying African American safety and nationalism during the 19th century.

Two great leaders of the black community in the late 19th and 20th century were W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. However, they sharply disagreed on strategies for black social and economic progress. Their opposing philosophies can be found in much of today's discussions over how to end class and racial injustice, what is the role of black leadership, and what do the 'haves' owe the 'have-nots' in the black community.

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:

Across cultures and throughout history, women have experienced ongoing systemic oppression; and they have responded with progressive movements of protest and creative alternatives. Harriet Tubman in the fight against slavery: Fannie Lou Hamer for voting rights: Ella Baker and Mary White Ovington in the civil rights movement: Rosa Luxemburg in the German socialist movement: Winnie Mandela in the anti-apartheid movement: Puerto Rican independence leader and poet Lolita Lebron: and American Indian movement activists Anna Mae Aquash, Ingrid Washinawatok, and Winona LaDuke (Mink and Navarro). Women have pioneered in movements for labor rights, prison reform, reproductive rights and health, education, affordable housing, affirmative action and equal rights, human rights, and environmental safety. These women’s leadership styles span a range from soft to harsh, from wielding individual, hierarchical power to possessing a commitment to collectivism, and from identifying as “woman as caretaker of life” to woman as requiring and utilizing equal power to man. There is no one characteristic that applies to all women as social change leaders (Hurtado).

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.

In history, women have always struggled to gain equality, respect, and the same rights as men. Women had had to endure years of sexism and struggle to get to where we are today. The struggle was even more difficult for women of color because not only were they dealing with issues of sexism, but also racism. Many movements have helped black women during the past centuries to overcome sexism, racism, and adversities that were set against them. History tells us that movements such as the Feminist Movement helped empower all women, but this fact is not totally true. In this paper, I will discuss feminism, the movements, and its "minimal" affects on black women.

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.

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.

The issue necessitating this empirical study I the low representation of African American women in Philadelphia in positions of power and leadership. Within the private and public sector of organizations within city agencies and businesses, there is still little representation of women-owned or led agencies within the City even though special consideration is given to women-led organizations. There are two African

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