A LITTLE HISTORY

In my literature review of Vicki Ruiz's Unequal Sisters: An Inclusive Reader in US Women’s History, 4th Edition Chapter 1and 2. The first person I would like to write about is Charlotte Hawkins Brown

she worked to get equal rights for African American women. She was courageous enough to stand up and present in front of the YWCA and present her case and a plea for help to end racial injustices. The YWCA was a group of southern white women known as Young Women Christian Association. Charlotte Hawkins Brown had two themes one was the power of testimony to reach across social boundaries and the other the role of women of color in expanding the feminist agenda. She forced white women to think outside of their own experiences. In my last class with Professor Casso we watched a video of Tim Weiss and he talks about how you can never really know how people feel since you can never really be in their shoes. We watched this video in class a few months ago and yet I still have the video in my mind. I never really thought about how difficult it would be to try to put myself in someone else’s shoes and how it really would be impossible.

The next people I would like to talk about is the Grimke’ sisters Sarah and Angelina. The sisters joined the female anti-slavery society. They tried to get women to convince their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons of the cruelties of slavery. The believed that slavery was a crime against not only men but God as well. The sisters wrote letters analyzing women as inferior status, refuted biblical injunctions against women’s activism and rejected female subservience to men.

The last person I would like to write about is Sojourner Truth. While Frederick Douglas was stating “This is the Negro’s hour,” Sojourner was trying to make people understand that if colored men get rights but not women things are no better than before. She also argued that race and gender were inseparable. This woman is so inspirational and so ahead of her time in my opinion, to argue such strong points. While most women were ok with being lower than men she fought for equal rights. Even today I myself have never really thought about the fact that women aren’t as superior as men. Well until today I realized that we don’t really know where this idea came from it is almost like a social norm across almost every culture.

#CharlotteHawkinsBrown #YWCA