I'd like to start by saying, I'm forever grateful for all those Black women who used their voices, along with their spiritual, mental, and physical resources to get us to where we are today, (#womenempowerment, #Blackwomenlegends.) I salute all the women pioneers and trailblazers, (#Blackwomenempowerment.)
The Women's Right to Vote (#womenrights) for women passed in 1919 and was ratified in August 1920. In an article written by Sarah Pruitt (2020) she writes, "More than 20 nations around the world had granted women the right to vote, along with 15 states, more than half of them in the West. Suffragists had marched en masse, been arrested for illegally voting and picketing outside the White House, gone on hunger strikes and endured brutal beatings in prison—all in the name of the American woman’s right to vote." Unfortunately, as a Black woman (#blackwomen), this sounds so familiar and hits very close to home.
While white women were suffering and battling their plight, black women were suffering on a greater level...from the words of Sojourner Truth, "Anit I A Women." You see, in 1919, known to some as the Red Summer, Black people were experiencing high levels of violence and killings. According to the1919, The Year of Racial Violence by David Krugler, "Between late 1918 and later 1919, the United States recorded ten major race riots, dozens of minor, racially charged clashes, and almost 100 lynchings as white Americans tried to enforce the continued subjugation of Black Americans in the postwar era." #blacklivesmatter
So where were the Black women in all this? They were fighting for the right to be considered human and not a piece of property. Black women were fighting to keep their families together, Black women were fighting for their Freedom #freedom.
After years of suffrage, in 1964, Congress passed Public Law 88-352 (78 Stat. 241). The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing. (US Department of Labor)
Despite great strides, to this day, there is still a radical gap between white men and women's wages compared to that of Black Women. The most recent research (2020) shows Black Women make 76 cents on a dollar compared to white men with the same qualifications. She makes less and ranks lower professionally than the White Women, Asian Women, and the Black Man.
I find it AMAZING that in spite of all that Black Women have had to suffer through and suffer from we are still standing, words of the late great Dr. Maya Angelo, STILL I RISE! #blackgirlpower, #blackgirlsrock, #blackandbeautiful
We have come a long way baby, yet we have a ways to go!