Jackson 1 Essays - Identity Politics, Politics, Black Power

Jackson 1 Bennie Jackson African American Studies 2210 Professor Eboe Hutchful April 26, 2017 Your Week 13 Discussion Board specifically flagged the issue of gender in the Black Freedom struggle for the first time. Yet, as we already know from the readings, the voices of Black Women have resounded from the very early days of the struggle. How have Black Women activists themselves conceptualized or visualized their particular situation and their role in the struggle? Answer by reviewing the ideas of the following: A. J. Cooper, Mary Church Terrell, Anne Dunbar-Nelson, Amy Jacques Garvey, Claudia Jones, the Combahee River Collective and Angela Davis. How should each of these activists be classified: as integrationist, Black Nationalist, or Transformationalist? Although black women played a huge role in the Black Power Struggle , they rarely received recognition for their dedicated participation. From the movement's inception, black women were at the forefront, organizing communities, church congregations, and Civil Rights organizations. However, despite such committed involvement to improving the conditions of black Americans, black female movement participants encountered sexist treatment from their black male counterparts and mainstream society. All of the women that were inv olved in the Black Freedom Struggle was motivated by accepting values of integrationalism , transformationalism, and/or Black Nationalism. Even though black women encountered sexism within organizations prior to 1966, the sexism was not as blatant and combative a s it was during the Black Freedom Movement. Mary Church Terrell, whose ideologies leaned more to integrationalism , was one of the most profound activists leading up to the Black Freedo m Struggle . Her scholarly articles, poems, and Jackson 2 short stories about race and gender appea red in numerous journals and magazines. Terrell began her professional career as a writer, educator, and activist, co-founded the National Association of Colored Women and served as the organization's first president . Terrell joined the passionate efforts to end legal segregat ion in Washington, D.C. In 1940 she wrote her autobiography, A Colored Woman in a White World, which details her own battles with gender and race discrimination in t he United States. In 19 09, she was made a charter member of the NAAC P. Within the NAACP, she could not escape sexism, therefore, Terrell confronted Washingto n's then current racial issues and i t became her greatest achievement. Ann Dunbar-Nelson addressed the issues that confronted African-Americans and women of her time. S he served as field organizer for the Woman's Suffrage M ovement and for the Wome n's Committee of the Council of Defense . Dunbar-Nelson was a teacher, activist, and journalist who was active in the women's suffrage and anti-lynching movements. During the last two decades of her life, her efforts were directed towards the political issues surrounding African Americans. Her one-act play "Mine Eyes Have Seen" was published in the Crisis, a NAACP journal edited by W.E.B. DuBois. It raised questions about the duties of Black Americans that served in a war waged by a country that had not given them any justice. Ann Dunbar-Nelson utilized theories of transformationalism through her may works that developed from her abilities to use her Creole linguistics to get her points across. While she continued the struggle for Black Nationalism and African Independence, Amy Jacques Garvey doubled as a pioneer for Pan-African emancipation. Becoming the wife of the late, great Marcus Garvey in 1922, she gained notoriety by aiding him in writing his countless articles and publications. Garvey, within her own right, later published her own book, Garvey and Jackson 3 Garveyism and later published two collections of essays, Black Power in America and The Impact o f Garvey in Africa and Jamaica. Herself and husband were advocates of rallying for blacks to gain their own central powers and have freedom to self-govern. All along she helped organize and develop Garvey's philosophy of African Consciousness, Self-help, and above all economic independence. She will be greatly remembered for her conscious efforts of heroic deeds and sacrifices. Claudia Jones was a Communist for her entire adult life and a leader in several major mo vements. Although her formal education had terminated because she was forced to drop out of high school, her education did not stop there.