The audacity of Black women
11th January 2021 · 0 Comments
For decades, we’ve heard it said that Black women are the backbone of African-American families. However, during the last presidential race, it’s became clear that Black women are the driving force in the Democratic Party.
Indeed, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris paid tribute to Black women in her victory speech. “Black women are the backbone of our democracy,” Harris said. The facts bear out her contention. The Biden-Harris ticket won 90 percent of Black women’s votes, which helped Biden to secure both the democratic nomination and the Oval Office.
A main player in democratic politics is Stacey Abrams. She is the quintessential backbone of the Democratic Party. Abrams’ nonprofits, Fair Fight, Fair Fight Action, and the New Georgia Project are credited with registering 800,000 new Georgia voters over the past two years. Although she founded Fair Fight in 2018, she launched the New Georgia Project in 2014, in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act.
The former Democratic Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, Abrams made history in 2018 as the Democratic nominee for Governor of Georgia. Abrams won more votes than any other Democrat in the state’s history. Just 55,000 votes prevented her from becoming the first Black woman to be governor of Georgia. Abrams was also the first Black woman and first Georgian to deliver a democratic response to Donald Trump Sr.’s State of the Union Address in 2019.
Abrams is largely credited with delivering Georgia’s electoral votes to the Biden-Harris ticket and helping to elect Reverend Raphael Warnock, the state’s first Black U.S. Senator and Jon Ossoff, a Jewish media executive, who will be the youngest Senator on Capitol Hill. Their victories gave the Democrats control of the U.S. Senate.
The attorney, voting rights activist and New York Times bestselling author had a unique strategy for registering voters. Instead of courting voters who would never vote for Democrats, Abrams organized a coalition of at least 10 grassroots groups and reached out to disaffected Blacks and members of other ethnic groups who were disenchanted with politics. Her groups also raised $6 million to carry out the voter registration campaign.
Abrams has many of the traits which are the hallmark of the great Black women on whose shoulders she stands. She is persistent, determined, committed, and fearless in seeking justice and fairness.
Before there was Stacey Abrams, there was Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Shirley Chisolm and a pantheon of great Black women leaders who paved the way for today’s activists and organizers.
Sojourner Truth (Isabella “Belle” Baumfree) was an American abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in New York but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son in 1828, she became the first Black woman to win such a case against a white man. Truth lectured on women rights and the abolition of slavery. Her best known speech, “Ain’t I A Woman,” demanded respect for both her gender and her race. During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit Black troops for the Union Army. Her work earned her an invitation to meet President Abraham Lincoln in 1864.
Harriet Tubman is remembered for helping enslaved Africans to escape to freedom. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including family and friends, using a network of safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. Tubman was also an abolitionist and political activist. During the Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. In her later years, Tubman was an activist in the movement for women’s suffrage.
Ella Josephine Baker was instrumental in shaping the development of the Civil Rights Movement in America. She was a fundraiser and organizer for the NAACP during W.E.B. Dubois’ leadership. In the late 1950s, she helped create the SCLC to fight racism; in her role as executive director (as opposed to the Rev. Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.’s primary spokesperson role), she was also an inspiring force behind the creation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer was a civil, voting and women’s rights activist who also led efforts to get economic opportunities for African Americans. She was a field secretary for voter registration and welfare programs for SNCC and taught voter registration classes for the SCLC. She was the co-founder and vice chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which she represented at the 1964 Democratic National Convention and in 1968, she was part of the regular Mississippi delegation where she was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. Hamer is remembered for her most famous speech, “Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired,” in which she told of the violence and injustices she endured while trying to register to vote. She unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1964 and the Mississippi State Senate in 1971. In 1970, Hamer sued the government of Sunflower County, Mississippi for continued illegal segregation.
Shirley Anita Chisholm was an American politician, educator and author. In 1968, she became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress, representing New York’s 12th congressional district for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. Chisholm became the first Black major-party candidate to run for president of the United States, in the 1972 U.S. presidential election, and the first woman ever to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
These brave women were extraordinary in the sense that they stubbornly persisted in their demand for equality and justice. Along the way, they acquired fame, but it is Black culture that elevated them in their quests.
They possessed the traits of many Black women leaders: They didn’t allow anyone to disrespect them, they were outspoken, they knew their worth, they cared about others, they were brave, proud, tolerant and patient. They faced adversity without batting an eye, they were resilient and they could make something out of nothing.
Today, we have Black women mayors of major cities, Black women in Congress, Black women judges, and Kamala Harris the first woman and first Black woman to be elected vice president of the United States of America.
Surely, the day will come when Stacey Abrams is elected to a major political office. We may even see her become the first Black and first female Governor of Georgia. Currently, there are people advocating for Abrams to become the Chair of the Democratic National Committee. We hope she does take that position. With Abrams’ knowledge and skills, a New South might just become a reality. Whatever the future holds for Abrams, her place in American history and Black history is assured.
This article originally published in the January 11, 2021 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
