WOMEN
OF THE WORLD
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Who can think of the world's women, and not marvel?
There is no area of human endeavor upon which the mark of
woman has not been made, and made well.
Every year, around the time of International Women's
Month, advertisements in the newspaper trumpet the
accomplishments of women, but usually they shy away from
the women who have fought for the revolutionary rights of
women and others, or who have fought against the
partriarchal status quo. As in Black History Month,
those who are celebrated tend to be 'safe' women; those
who are acceptable to men because they haven't rocked the
boat, or, if they did so, they did so gently.
I will not address such women here; they are represented
elsewhere
Let us think of women who are usually ignored; or who are
feared, or who are shunned by the corporate media.
Women like those nameless billions who (according to the
UN Conference of Women in Copenhagen in 1980) perform
between two-thirds and three-quarters of the work in the
world (and produce 45% of the world's food!). They
labor against great odds, and keep body and soul together
for billions of children. They are heroines.
Let us think of women like Tarika Lewis, who was the
first woman to join the Black Panther Party as a
rank-and-file member, and with her courage and ability,
paved the way for thousands of others to follow her path;
while her name may not be known nor famous, history
should record her proud contribution of resistance to the
racist repression of the 1960s and '70s.
Tarika, like millions of other Black women, came from
traditions of woman warriors all along the West African
coast.
While some have suggested otherwise, the 18th Century
ex-slave, sailor and writer, Olaudah Equiano noted
clearly, when telling memories of his tribe, wrote:
"All are taught the use of these weapons; *even our
women are warriors*, and march boldly out to fight along
with the men." [fr. *The Life of Olaudah
Equiano, or Gustavus assa, the African* (orig., 1789), p.
16]
Equiano recalled seeing a battle while nestled in a tree,
his mother in the thick of the battle, armed with a broad
sword!
Let us not suggest that brave women warriors were rare or
relegated to the dusty pages of dry history books.
The name, Fred Hampton, is legendary, yet few remember
his young wife, Akua, who lay beside him as he was
slaughtered by the State, and now continues as a leader
in the struggle. While Fred is remembered, and
perhaps Mark Clark, few remember that two Panther women
were among the wounded that night: Verlina Brewer and
Brenda Harris were each shot twice by the state and
federal death squad, and both were seriously wounded, but
they survived, and bravely continued the resistance as
Panthers.
There has been no true popular struggle in
African-American history, American history, or world
history, that was not, in part, supported or sustained by
women. Women were at the very heart of the
Abolition Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black
Liberation Movement, and the Anti-War Movements.
That they are not well-known is due to their being
disappeared from the annals of history.
Let us not forget Ruby Robinson (1942-1967) who was a
fiery militant activist with SNCC;
Claudia Jones (1915-1964) a Trinidadian-born radical
journalist and communist who led the Free Mandela
campaigns in London; Lolita Lebron, who fought for Puerto
Rican independence from the U.S.; Petrona Chacon, who was
a leading figure in the 1840 slave revolt in Cuba;
Ernestina "Titina" Sila (1943-1973) African
revolutionary leader, fought for the PAIGC (African Party
for Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde); Septima P.
Clark (1898-1987), who established 'Freedom Schools' in
the apartheid South, worked with the SCLC; Cherry Turner,
wife and co-conspirator with the Black rebel, Nat Turner,
of the August, 1831 Insurrection that shook the South to
its roots; Ella Baker (1903-1986), founded SNCC,
organized Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, worked
with Puerto Rican Solidarity Committee; affectionately
called "Fundi", Swahili for 'teacher';... and
these are but a few.
Let us not forget them, and millions like them; mostly
unknown, erased from 'official' history; remembered in
the realm of the heartfor their strength, their courage,
their powerful will to be free, which inspires us all...
still.
Copyright©
2003 Mumia Abu-Jamal
From: nattyreb@comcast.net
Harlem Anti-war march
and rally on April 5th
Brothers, Sisters, friends and Supporters: US polls
indicate overwhelming Black opposition to the racist and
illegal war of "shock and awe" against the
people of Iraq. People of African descent understand well
the US doctrine of "shock and awe"
terrorism to expand its empire that drips with the blood
of people of color. On April 5th in the historic village
of Harlem thousands of African descendants in the US
along with people of color allies will raise their voices
in protest against this WAR FOR OIL. We will debunk the
myth that People of Color do not have a visible voice or
presence in the anti-war movement. We will speak to our
issues, give our analysis, and support allies without
conditions. This is a historic moment for the world, and
especially for people of color. It is no accident that
African Americans comprise 30% of the 40% people of color
serving as cannon fodder for the US military. A bleak
future of minimum wage employment or the prison
industrial complex drives our sons and daughters into the
military. Instead of educating our kids public schools
have become fertile ground for military recruitment while
every obstacle is put in place to prevent our children
from obtaining higher education. It is no accident that
New York State's courts have ruled the public school
system has the obligation to only provide our children
with an 8th grade education. Not to mention the continued
daily brutality and death of our young people at the
hands of the police. If this is not enough, now they want
the blood of our children to fight in the Middle East in
a campaign of endless war (Iraq is only the first target
in the region). ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! JOIN US ON APRIL 5TH IN
HARLEM, LET US SPEAK WITH ONE VOICE.
nellie hester <nelliehester@yahoo.com>
Freedom
Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
By Robin D. G. Kelley
Beacon Press, 2002. $25.00
Review by Daphne Muse
Intelligence, and how you use it, matters. And the
resounding truth of that lies in the multiply profound
words contained in a series of essays in Robin D.G.
Kelley's Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical
Imagination. Often it takes writers, philosophers
and historians like Kelley to help us put our minds on
redial and recall those who inspired our dreams and
helped to shape our thinking and our visions.
Early on in Freedom Dreams, Kelley notes:
"Sometimes I think the conditions of daily life, of
everyday oppressions, of survival, not to mention the
temporary pleasures accessible to most of us, render much
of our imagination inert. We are constantly putting
out fires, responding to emergencies, finding temporary
refuge, all of which make it difficult to see anything
other than the present."
There is absolutely nothing inert about Kelley, as he
navigates ever so facilely back to the past, dances in
the present and drums up the future while listening as
Bootsy reminds us, "We need da funk. Gotta have
dafunk." But even Bootsy would concur that this
current funk may be the mother of all funks, as America
nose dives into the tailspin of war on Iraq.
But Kelley's irrepressible energy, intellect and optimism
have come together to forge a vision capable of giving us
pause for brilliant and vital new possibilities. As
a contemporary preeminent historian, Kelley's
intellectual rigor delivers us the dreams of
intellectuals and renegades throughout the African
Diaspora clearly noting that people are drawn to social
movements because they respect their historical legacies,
believe in the future and value life. But the
dreams of poet Jane Cortez one of his mentors, activist
and artist Paul Robeson and billions of everyday people
are so radically different from the world we've
inherited. In language that's accessible, Kelley leads us
into revisiting conversations and thinking about how our
dreams can become a "nation" or an integral
part of the sustainable foundation of the country in
which we live.
Where others get bogged down in taking theoretical
depositions, Kelley navigates with a kind of historical
confidence and ease, usually worn by seasoned historians
who've clocked decades. But in every essay,
Kelley the historian and cultural critic clearly
demonstrates intelligence matters and how we use it
matters even more. From Third World liberation
movements to Communism and the imaginative mindscapes of
Surrealism to the transformative unmet potential of
radical feminism, Kelley bypasses the usual
rhetorical quagmires and fluidly reopens old
conversations with scores of brilliant dreamers,
producing historically sustained encounters that take us
"Roaring from the East: Third World Dreaming,"
to "This Battlefield Called Life": Black
Feminist Dreams soaring upwards to "A Day of
Reckoning": Dreams of Reparations" and
landing at the feet of "When History
Wakes": A New Beginning.
"In the Battlefield Called Life" he points out
that "Black women don't usually appear in histories
of "second wave" radical feminism, except as
frustrated critics of white women. But a few were
there at the very beginning. Florynce
"Flo" Kennedy and Pauli Murray, both attorneys
with a long history of civil rights and feminist
activism, were founding members of the National
Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966. I would urge
Kelley to add Aileen Hernandez to that list.
Hernandez was NOW's second National President and a
founding member of the organization. She is a
former
Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission, a
former Assistant Chief of the Division of Fair Employment
Practices for California and was the Education and Public
Relations Director for the Pacific Coast region of the
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union who
continues the legacy she, Murray and Kennedy set into
motion some thirty-seven years ago. While "the
radical feminist vision of revolution paid little
attention to race or the unique position of women of
color," it did not deter women like Murray, Kennedy
or Hernandez from dreaming their dreams into visions and
making them operational imperatives in the lives of a
generation of colored girls who
became even bolder black women. At times both witty
and graceful, he has us standing with Robeson, dreaming
out loud with his Momma, "Hipping the Hip" with
poet and veteran radical Ramon Durem, and guarding
"Africa's memory" with Ted Joans while climbing
scaffolds of struggle to watch the building of
revolutions once under construction, destroyed sometimes
by their own weight but most often annihilated by those
who tried, and often succeeded in marketing of us out of
our dreams.
In his final essay, never presumptuous Kelley states,
""I won't propose much more since the design
and realization of such a space ought to be the product
of a collective imagination shaped and reshaped by the
very process of turning rubble and memory into the seeds
of a new society." His writing constantly
beckons me not to inhale the vapors of terrorism, nor
allow the drums of war to drown out my dreams. Like
Alice Walker's poem "Revolutionary Petunia's,"
David Walker's Appeal, Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I A
Woman," and Mos Def and Talib Kweli's Black
Star, he challenges me to keep Dreaming in Freedom.
And like a sculptor maybe we will get to take the current
maelstrom of destruction and mould it into a long
standing monument to life, everyday, everyday life.
I sure hope millions of people, especially young folk
will get their reading groove on and get down with the
mix brother Kelley represents in these pages, cause I
want to "dis-course" and speak on it with them
and young people steeped in struggle, like
Youth4Reparations, as well as others whose lives are void
of this kind of dreaming.
Daphne Muse©msmusewriter@aol.com,
Artworks by Tayseer Barakat samia@rcn.com
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