[ad_1]
I began planning for this put up virtually a 12 months in the past, once I noticed that Beacon Press had printed a guide titled With Her Fist Raised: Dorothy Pitman Hughes and the Transformative Energy of Black Group Activism. Dorothy is how she prefers to be known as, and her story felt like each an applicable matter for Girls’s Historical past Month, and a bridge linking again to Black Historical past Month.
The guide cowl caught my eye first, as a result of it options the famous photo of Gloria Steinem (who’s white) and Dorothy Pitman Hughes (who’s Black) standing facet by facet in solidarity, two icons of the ladies’s motion, each with their fists raised within the Black energy salute. That cowl picture has been altered to place Steinem barely within the shadow and Dorothy Pitman Hughes within the highlight.
Some rebalancing alongside these traces is likely to be wanted. Talking not less than for myself, previous to studying this guide, I knew much more about Gloria Steinem than I did about Dorothy Pitman Hughes. Maybe that’s the case for a few of you as properly. (In distinction, for those who realized quite a bit rising up about Dorothy Pitman Hughes, that’s nice, and I’d be all for listening to extra about that from you.)
Let me offer you a latest instance of how even highly effective Black ladies have traditionally been pushed out of the sunshine and into the shadows: did any of you watch the Hulu mini-series a couple of years in the past known as Mrs. America, concerning the battle to go the Equal Rights Modification? It was an awesome television sequence in numerous methods, together with its fascinating scenes with Gloria Steinem; however Dorothy Pitman Hughes wasn’t in it in any respect, although she was a co-founder of Ms. journal. So, I’m grateful for this primary full-length biography of this “trailblazing Black feminist activist whose work made youngsters, race, and welfare rights central to the ladies’s motion” (Beacon Press).
And though I’ve been planning for nearly a 12 months to jot down on this matter, it has come to really feel much more related following the week of affirmation hearings which will end in Choose Ketanji Brown Jackson changing into the primary Black lady to sit down on the Supreme Court docket. Listening to about Choose Jacksons’s affirmation hearings—even whereas studying concerning the lifetime of pathbreaking group organizer Dorothy Pitman Hughes—has prompted me to mirror fairly a bit concerning the lengthy arc of social justice, as a result of though there stays an extended highway forward of us to construct the world we dream about, we’re nonetheless raised up on the shoulders of the giants who’ve come earlier than us, whose ripple results proceed to play out in profound methods from era to era.
However earlier than we concentrate on Dorothy Pitman Hughes, I need to invite us to take a step again to contemplate an extended view, a view of the astonishing work of so many different political activists in creating social change, work wherein she performed a major half.
The relative lack of cultural recognition presently acquired by Dorothy Pitman Hughes renews my appreciation for the significance of right this moment’s nomination of Choose Jackson to be the primary Black lady Supreme Court docket Justice, and likewise of the latest election of Kamala Harris as the primary Black and first Asian American Vice President. I convey up the names of those two ladies specifically as a result of, after they had been every nominated for his or her respective positions, they each did one thing comparable that caught my consideration and challenged my considering; after they credited the Black ladies who helped pave the highway they’re now strolling—and in so doing, they challenged me (and probably many people) to be taught to inform our society’s historical past in broader, extra inclusive methods.
When Choose Jackson was nominated in February, she famous that she shares a birthday with the Honorable Constance Baker Motley (1921-2005), the primary Black lady to be appointed as a federal decide. Jackson and Motley had been born 49 years aside (White House). What Jackson is poised to perform, she attributes partly to the large legacy of the pathbreaking Black ladies who got here earlier than her. And right here’s the factor: I need to be sincere that there have been varied deadlines once I may have informed you who Constance Baker Motley was, and different factors once I must confess that that identify sounded acquainted, however I’m undecided precisely what she was most identified for.
However I’m grateful to Ketanji Brown Jackson for lifting up Motley’s life and legacy—and thus difficult us to inform our nation’s collective story higher. It’s lovely to note all of the ways in which Constance Baker Motley being the primary Black lady to be appointed a federal decide made it attainable for an additional Black lady born two generations later to turn into the primary Black lady Supreme Court docket Justice. The arc of historical past bends with a irritating slowness generally, however there’s additionally large hope after we can look again and see that it has bent towards justice.
Justice Jackson’s invocation of Constance Baker Motley resonated with me for one different cause. It jogged my memory of Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech when she was nominated the primary lady, first Black, and first Asian American Vice President of the USA. One a part of her acceptance speech that stood out most for me is when Harris gave a shoutout to Constance Baker Motley, in addition to to 6 different Black ladies: “Mary Church Terrell, Mary McCleod Bethune, Fannie Lou Hamer, Diane Nash, and Shirley Chisholm.” Harris didn’t element their accomplishments. She merely stated, “We’re not usually taught their tales. However as People, all of us stand on their shoulders” (New York Times). She was proper.
Right here, I’ll once more confess that I can’t let you know off the highest of my head who all of these ladies had been. Some I acknowledged, however sadly realized I used to be hazy on the small print. Shirley Chisholm (1924 – 2005) I do know. She was an unbelievable power in politics. In 1968 she grew to become the primary Black lady elected to the USA Congress, working below the slogan “Unbought and unbossed.” She was additionally the primary Black candidate for a major-party nomination for President of the USA. Likewise, I do know a good quantity about Fannie Lou Hamer (1917 – 1977) and her activism for voting and ladies’s rights; certainly, I virtually wrote a put up about her this 12 months, but it surely needed to be modified to subsequent 12 months on account of rescheduling.
A few of these different names I needed to lookup. As Vice President Harris stated, “We’re not usually taught their tales. However as People, all of us stand on their shoulders” Illustration issues. And centering a larger range of individuals right here on this sanctuary—and within the state and nation too—will increase our collective consciousness of telling our nation’s story in wider, extra inclusive methods.
The arc of historical past generally bends surprisingly quick, however normally it bends infuriatingly slowly! It might even reverse itself for a time. However I need to invite us to note that the arc of historical past was bending all throughout Shirley Chisholm’s quixotic marketing campaign for President in 1972, a run which helped pave the best way for Kamala Harris’s election as Vice President two generations later.
Over time, this gradual shifting of our societal tectonic plates creates propulsive prospects. A few of chances are you’ll bear in mind Jay-Z saying it this manner: “Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King may stroll. Martin Luther King walked so Obama may run. Obama’s working so all of us can fly” (Guardian).
Now admittedly, Jay-Z stated that in 2008, and everyone knows that eight years of the primary Black President didn’t resolve racism in America. However as with the examples of the gradual arc of historical past and progress that we’ve been contemplating, it could take extra generations to totally recognize their implications. Which means it could be one other thirty or forty years to go earlier than all of us actually grasp probably the most profound ripple results from our first Black President of the USA.
So, this narrative has been just a little little bit of the good distance round; but it surely felt vital, after this week of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s affirmation hearings, to hint a few of these echoes of affect.
Now let me remember to share with you some highlights concerning the wealthy lifetime of Dorothy Pitman Hughes—how she and Gloria Steinem got here to be standing collectively on that stage, and about all that occurred earlier than and since, and all that continues to occur. In spite of everything, in contrast to lots of the historic leaders we discover on this weblog, Dorothy Pitman Hughes is a dwelling historic determine. At this time, she’s in her mid-80s!
Dorothy was born in 1938 in a small city in Georgia, south of Atlanta (7). A part of what opened her creativeness about what is likely to be attainable past the borders of that small rural group is that her father was a truck driver for the lumber trade. His journeys to faraway states and cities seeded her with a curiosity to develop up and discover the world for herself (18).
And she or he began these adventures early. Remarkably, at age 11, she began strolling—two hours spherical journey—to attend the closest regional assembly of the NAACP (19). And likewise apparently, one in all her largest takeaways from that formative expertise was the unfairness she skilled at NAACP conferences for coming from a poor, working-class group. She realized early on of the necessity to work, not solely to dismantle racism, but additionally to interrupt down class limitations (19).
Dorothy was additionally a gifted singer, so not lengthy after graduating from highschool, she took an uncommon leap. In 1958, she traveled to New York and cobbled collectively jobs as a live-in home employee through the day and a nightclub singer within the evenings (23-25).
In 1964, she married Invoice Pitman, who was white and Irish. She used to say that, “600 years of colonial oppression of the Irish by the English meant he may be capable to perceive tons of of years of African American oppression by whites.” And in ways in which presaged her later work with Gloria Steinem, she tended to emphasise similarities between herself and Invoice as finally larger than their variations (36-37). Extra poignantly, she used to say that she had “no hesitancy about utilizing white males to perform the Black revolution” (38). Honest sufficient.
Half of what’s most inspirational and sensible about Dorothy’s method to social justice is that she is a good mannequin of specializing in what’s particularly wanted, each in your personal life and within the lives of these round you. Within the mid-Sixties, when she appeared round at her life and the lives of her neighbors, she seen one obvious want that stood out above the remainder: high quality childcare. So she began by going up and down the road, knocking on all of the doorways of individuals whom she knew had youngsters, and listening to those dad and mom about what their wants had been (43).
The relationships constructed by way of these conversations birthed the West eightieth Avenue Day Care Heart:
Greater than a thoughtfully run childcare middle, it supplied job coaching for volunteer moms who obtained off welfare and enrolled in school programs in early childhood training and summer season jobs for native teenagers, amongst different initiatives. Dorothy recruited teenagers to survey native meals prices, solely to find that costs went up simply earlier than welfare checks had been issued. A marketing campaign run out of the middle introduced that follow to an finish. (46-47)
And when Gloria Steinem was assigned to jot down an article on the middle, that’s how she and Dorothy met (46).
Considerably, Dorothy’s feminism was not impressed by Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Intercourse or Betty Friedan’s The Female Mystique—not that there’s something incorrect with that. These books had been extra the place Gloria Steinem was coming from. However Dorothy’s feminism grew extra out of a lived sense of many males ignoring the wants of ladies for “security, meals, shelter, and childcare” (61). And that’s a part of what made Gloria and Dorothy such a dynamic and influential pair as they toured the nation from 1969 by way of 1973, talking steadily in public collectively: they introduced completely different, however complementary, worldviews and experiences to the desk (63). (If any of you noticed them in particular person I’d have an interest to know.)
Dorothy was additionally extraordinarily useful to Gloria Steinem early on as a result of Gloria didn’t initially like public talking, whereas Dorothy was an previous hand at taking the stage, given her years as a nightclub singer (63).
When Dorothy was sometimes questioned about why she as a Black lady was spending a lot time serving to a motion that primarily centered the wants of white ladies, she would say that, “[s]he needed to be a part of a motion to empower ladies” (66). On the one hand, she acknowledged that the connection she had constructed with Gloria “was not consultant or simply reproduced” (73). Alternatively, she treasured the truth that her friendship with Gloria additionally represented some extent of actual hope from which it was really attainable to construct bridges throughout racial divides (64).
Relatedly, I like the story about how Dorothy’s household belonged to a theologically conservative Baptist church in rural Georgia that was against ladies holding all however social management positions. Regardless of her dedication to ladies’s liberation, she would all the time go to her childhood church every time she was on the town; within the early Nineteen Seventies, she helped racially combine that church by bringing the very first white particular person to ever go to the church: Gloria Steinem. That should have been fairly the Sunday. Dorothy stated the congregation “type of thought I used to be loopy…[T]hey known as me Black Panther” (8).
There’s a lot extra to Dorothy’s story, together with the truth that lately, Gloria Steinem helped Dorothy’s household save their land towards a predatory buyout try by a company (115). One of many methods they did that in 2017 was with a fundraiser constructed round re-staging that well-known {photograph} of the 2 ladies side-by-side with their fists raised—besides this time Gloria was eighty-two and Dorothy seventy-nine (118). You may simply discover that picture for those who google it.
For now, in conclusion, let me hyperlink us again briefly to final week’s column on “Building a New Mythology.” A few of chances are you’ll do not forget that we spent a while reflecting on Toni Morrison’s admonition to “Dream just a little earlier than you assume.” Don’t simply assume inside acquired classes, programs, and establishments as they presently exist. “Dream just a little earlier than you assume” — simply as Dorothy did when dreaming up and creating her Group Childcare Heart, simply as all these different pathbreaking, trailblazing, visionary “firsts” did. All of them needed to dream just a little, not nearly what was, however about what is likely to be. Then they turned their goals into deeds.
I need to conclude in that spirit with only one extra instance that may assist us dream just a little about what is likely to be. Do I’ve any Trekkies on the market? Particularly, is anybody watching Star Trek: Discovery? I received’t get too spoilery, however the present is notable for plenty of causes, together with casting a Black lady because the ship’s captain. However the actual cause this present is coming to thoughts now could be {that a} latest episode had fairly the shock cameo, casting Stacey Abrams because the United Earth President—a Black lady (and distinguished up to date politician) as President, not simply of the USA, however of the entire planet (Hollywood Reporter). That alone is a good looking imaginative and prescient in step with the Internationalism of our UU sixth Precept of world group that our youth group spoke so powerfully about a couple of weeks in the past.
Inclusive visions of the longer term can encourage us to dream just a little earlier than we predict. We’re known as, in any case, not solely to higher be taught the historical past that has come earlier than, but additionally to be a part of making the historical past that future generations will inherit. What work may we do, each individually and collectively, the ripple results of which could not come to full fruition for 2 generations or extra? In a couple of weeks, on Earth Day, we’ll discover this query additional by way of a body of “learn how to turn into a greater ancestor.”
In 1966, when Constance Baker Motley grew to become the primary Black federal decide, you’d actually should squint to see that 56 years later, that earlier inflection level would assist create a world wherein Kentanji Brown Jackson is prone to turn into the primary Black lady to sit down on the Supreme Court docket. Equally, in 1972, when Shirley Chisholm grew to become the primary Black lady to run for President, you’d actually should squint to foretell that fifty years later, Chisholm’s candidacy would have performed such a major half in making a world wherein Kamala Harris may turn into the primary Black lady ever elected Vice President. (Now, to be sincere, I think that if Chisolm had been alive right this moment, she wouldn’t be glad with the function of VP. I think she can be saying, “Wake me up when Stacey Abrams is President!”
We stay in a tough and treacherous time, however we will additionally do what Dorothy Pitman Hughes did: we will go searching and ask, what do I want? What do my neighbors want?
After which we will work collectively to construct coalitions throughout our variations to create a greater world. For although we can’t know upfront what ripple impact is likely to be initiated on account of our work a era or two therefore, we owe it to ourselves and to future generations to strive our greatest to make it so.
The Rev. Dr. Carl Gregg is an authorized non secular director, a D.Min. graduate of San Francisco Theological Seminary, and the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Frederick, Maryland. Observe him on Facebook (fb.com/carlgregg) and Twitter (@carlgregg).
Study extra about Unitarian Universalism: http://www.uua.org/beliefs/principles
[ad_2]
Source link