As a young girl growing up Lumpkin Street near the historic Conant Gardens community on Detroit’s north east side, I like many learned that African American women, like white women, were active in the women’s suffrage movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In fact, Sojourner Truth, a former slave, became famous as both an abolitionist and an advocate of woman suffrage. She offered in 1851 a passionate declaration in Akron, Ohio entitled “Ain’t I a Woman.”
Similarly, many know the history of Susan B. Anthony and other women in the suffrage movement. Lots of people know of Ida B. Wells Barnett but may not know about her efforts to help secure a woman’s right to vote—especially at a time when blacks, both men and women, were denied that right.
She and Mary Church Terrell, founder of the National Association of Colored Women worked with white women to see to it that the 19th Amendment to U.S. Constitution was realized. Also, the African-American sorority Delta Sigma Theta also participated in the largest suffrage march in the nation, which was held in the Washington, D.C. in 1913.
As we understand that history, we need to fight for issues that are currently being debated in Congress on Capitol Hill. In January, I announced my run for the 14th Congressional District. There are several issues that are important to me and tens of thousands of southeastern Michigan voters.
They include:
· Increasing funding for job training and education funding
· Fighting for additional equal pay for equal work legislation (Women only earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man)
· Defending a woman’s right to choose
· Enacting sensible gun laws
· Opposing any cuts in Medicare and Social Security
As I grew older and graduated from Pershing High School; married high school sweetheart; bought our first home on Detroit’s northwest side, I would from time to time reflect on the work and the struggle of Ida B. Wells Barnett, Mary Church Terrell and others.
I’ve been fortunate to have been a union member as a postal carrier, a school board member; and a legislator on the Southfield City Council. In 2001, first female and first African-American Mayor of Southfield. Each day I remember the struggle that our ancestors have carried out on our behalf.
March is Women’s History Month. It is a great time to not only reflect but also to reinvigorate. It’s time to fight. Strong women like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells Barnett and others would not have it any other way.
So, during Women’s History Month 2014, let’s reflect but let’s also continue to fight for policies and resources that respect women, strengthen families and make the American dream attainable to all.
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