African American Women - Essay Example

African American Women Unit Introduction According to Collier-Thomas (318), women from the African descent in United States struggled more than all people across the world, when they opposed oppression. They were enslaved in America, but organized themselves and fought for freedom. Additionally, they fought for inclusion in the suffrage of women movement after slave abolition. Campbell (2007, 266) adds that they gained the voting right in 1920, but the disenfranchisement and racial segregation of Jim Crow was inflicted with excessive violence and therefore, blocked the suffrage of Black women.

During the Jim Crow era, women were denied the right to vote, but still opposed this oppression by both subversive and overt means. Campbell (266) claims that slavery was terrible for men, but worse for the women of Black descendants. This is a potent and strong remark and a quote, which acts as an evidence concerning the suffering the African-women slaves had to endure. Slavery was an occurrence of psychological, emotional, physical, and mental rape that the African Women had to persevere. They were also tortured, and when it became unbearable, the African-American decided to take actions in order to eradicate the pain.

In addition to taking care of their families and children, punishment and coerced labor, they were also sexually exploited. In fact, Terborg (78) v notes out that many of their punishments were sex overtones. To add to this, they were whipped by cow-skin that was plaited and assaulted using ebony brushes, including left to die after their ears and teeth were pulled out forcefully. The Black women’s leadership and activism during this time helped in the creation of a movement of Civil Rights in 20th century.

Malcolm X and Martin King Jr, had already become the 1960’s and 1950’s icons. However, the grassroots and organizational activism and skills of women who were activists like Clark Septima , Baker Ella, Parks Rosa and Hamer Fannie helped propel the movement to inspiring more generation of new activists as well as led to its successes. There are other historical reasons for slow and painful rise of the African-American woman whose gender and race seems to keep her submissive. African women also had a risk of personal loss where they had a long tradition of human and civil rights activism.

However, the tradition still lives on in examples and experiences of women like Walker Alice, Davis Angela, Norton Eleanor, and Edelman Marian (Terborg 78). These unsung hero of the civil rights movement like Baker Ella who helped in forming a Non-Violent Student Committee Coordination, Clark Septima created a school of citizen ship in order to teach Black women and men how to write, register in order to vote and write. Hamer Fannie was a sharecropper who won segregation with the Democratic Party.

The Black Panther Party of the women’s Black activism also fought the police, in addition to entrenching the mala leadership and the South Leadership Christian Conference, which was behind all women’s work and kept the party at float when it was under blockade. Wheatley Phyllis was born in Africa, Senagal in 1753 and sold to slavery at an early age of seven to Susannah and John Wheatley in Boston. She displayed her talents by learning how to write and read English, and at the age of thirteen she composed a poem.

She wrote many poems including the death of Whitefield George and later her poems became the first book to be written by an African- American woman. Many of her poems talk of racial inequality and injustice illusions. Slavery has had a terrible impact on Africa-American women but if they continue sticking and working together, their future looks great. This is because they have a great potential and are seen to succeed and win in everything they put their hands on. They also survived the oppression and slavery because they fought hard for their rights.

As Campbell (266) puts it, the African-American women can revolutionize themselves and uproot the long degradation and oppression that has been a life of Black people if they keep working together. Work CitedCollier-Thomas, Bettye, and VP. Franklin. Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights- Black Power Movement. New York : New York University Press, 2001. Print. Pg, 318Campbell. Gwyn, SuzanneMiers, and Joseph C. Miller. Women and Slavery. Athens, Ohio : Ohio University Press, 2007. Print. Pg 266.

Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn. African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote: 1850-1920. Bloomington: Inidana Univ Press, 1998. Print.Pg 78