History generally ignores the contributions of women. For centuries, they worked behind the scenes making the impossible possible with patience and dignity. For the most part, history not only ignored the contributions of Black women, it disregarded the contributions and accomplishments.
There was Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks, celebrated for their heroics and vilified for what some narrow-minded White people would call audacity. How dare they break the law in the name of freedom? Dare they did, and history could not ignore that courage and fortitude. History was not mindful of others, unfortunately.
A few weeks ago, I noted the contributions of Black women to the suffragette movement. Now it is time to honor just a few of the thousands who have improved America, who have made America great.
Accomplished Black women today continue the pioneering spirit of Bass. Let's step out of politics. There are the Serena and Venua Wiliams. They are highly succcessful tennis players, two of the greatest of the 21st century, as well as successful entrepeneurs. Their dignity and performance gave many other players of color a chance to play within the white lines of tennis.
Charlotta Bass was overlooked. She was the first women to run for vice president of the United States. She was the first black women. "Taking the stage to accept her nomination before some 2,000 delegates [for the Progressive Party] in an auditorium on Chicago’s West Side, Bass — who would receive endorsements from civil rights luminaries like Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois — declared: 'This is a historic moment in American political life.'" She was also the first African American woman to own and publish a newspaper, the California Eagle from 1912 to 1951.
With such astonishing individuals, it's fitting that Black women have become the nation's new superheroes--at least on screen. Now it is time to recognize them in the real world.
In counterpoint, "Women in Hate" explains the complicated lives of women from the farright movement. It's a book that deals fairly with the lives of three women, whom I would call troubled, and shows how they chose to tumbled into the world of White nationalism, sometimes only to leave latter. Are they heroes? No. Are they human? Yes.
It's America's shame that it did not treat Black women over the past four centuries with the same respect.
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