Mumia Abu-Jamal from death row
The 'other' women's history month
By Mumia
Abu-Jamal
"If the first woman God ever made was strong enough
to turn the world upside down alone, these women together
ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up
again!"
--Sojourner Truth, "Ain't I A Woman?"
(1858)
Within weeks of the arrival of Women's History Month, the
nation's cultural and financial center explodes into yet
another controversy over religious art, with Gotham's
tight-lipped mayor, "Rudolf" Giuliani, fulminating against
the depiction of a Christ-figure as a dark-skinned, naked
woman. Some called it blasphemy.
This cultural critique serves as a perfect introduction to
a month which memorializes the distinctive histories of
women. However, the women discussed here will rarely be seen
on TV or featured in newspaper reports, for these are not
"safe" women, as are those usually portrayed.
The world's history is one of resistance, of rebellion and
of radical action, which is usually suppressed in traditional
history.
How many of us know of the food boycotts of the early
1900s, when poor and working women organized tens of
thousands into mass demonstrations that rocked cities across
the nation?
In 1910-era New York, Jewish women "declared war on Kosher
butchers" because of high prices. In August 1914, over 1,000
Italian women in Providence, R.I., broke into wholesaler's
storage and threw macaroni into the streets, battling for
lower pasta prices.
A few years thereafter, in 1929, the Women's Revolt took
place in Nigeria, shaking the colony to its foundations.
These brave, radical women were protesting an agricultural
tax imposed by the British through the chiefs. The women
seized colonial offices (and held some for four days!),
organized mass protests and mass community meetings. Before
it was over, over 50 women were killed, and at least 50
wounded, by colonial military forces. However, the women
forced the British to revoke the tax.
Nor are women limited to mass actions of resistance, as
shown by the examples of some of the following: Sarah,
Harriet Ross, Mangobe, Jo Ann Robinson and uncounted
others.
Sarah was a captive in 1822-era Kentucky. One Kentucky
slave owner described her as the "biggest devil that ever
lived." The fierce 6-foot-tall Black woman poisoned her
owner's stud horse, set several stables afire, destroyed over
$1,500 worth of property, and escaped five times!
Mangobe was described by the late revolutionary historian
C.L.R. James as the "most revolutionary woman in the Congo"
for her role in leading the popular religious movement of the
Prophet, Simon Kimbangu, which had a deep anti-colonial
character. The imprisonment of Kimbangu and Mangobe sent the
Belgian colony into righteous and sustained revolt in
1921.
Harriet Ross thwarted the will of a slave trader who was
seeking her son by barring the door and telling the man, "The
first man that comes into my house, I will split his head
open." When her (so-called) owner's son tried to beat her,
she grabbed a pole, "and beat him nearly to death with it."
Her daughter stood by, watching and learning this tradition
of resistance.
Such a woman as this could truly be no man's slave, and
shortly thereafter, Harriet Ross demonstrated as much by
mounting a cow and riding away from slavery and the
plantation in broad daylight.
Oh. Her daughter? She learned her lesson well. You know of
her by the name Harriet Tubman, a woman revered as
"Moses."
The American Civil Rights Movement made the great orator
the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a household name. Almost
as well known is the sweet, quiet presence of Rosa Parks, the
proud woman who refused to relinquish her seat to a white man
on a bus.
But few recognize the name of Jo Ann Robinson, whose work
as an organizer insured that you now know Mme. Parks' name.
She was the chair of the Women's Political Council, a
professional women's group in Montgomery, Ala.--the little
known organizers of the historic bus boycott. Robinson wrote
the leaflet that informed and energized thousands, and the
WPC worked the phones getting the word out.
The names of women warriors of Black Liberation, of those
who are still politically active, and of radicals of later
generations are known to us, perhaps, as contemporary visions
of resistance that continues to move us: Angela Davis, the
Africa sisters, Assata Shakur, Kathleen Cleaver, Nehanda
Abiodun, Alice Walker, Marilyn Buck, Afeni Shakur, Kiilu
Nyasha, Linda Evans, Susan Rosenberg, Tarika Lewis, Elaine
Brown, Rosemari Mealy and on and on, show us a new face
spawned by an ancient seed of female fighters for freedom.
Many of these names are not well known (perhaps with the
exception of Angela, Assata and Alice), but neither were
those of history.
They are, nonetheless, valuable contributors to a rich
history of women who rebel.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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