Maxine Waters: Raising consciousness, not money
As one of the most powerful African American women in American politics today, Maxine Waters yields respect from both her allies and adversaries. (Dowd 8/22/83) As a member of the House of Representatives, who holds great command, Ms. Waters has a obligation, one might say a calling, to truly serve her constituency, to fight their struggles, to raise consciousness regarding the state of American society today, and to lend her constituency hope.
Ms. Waters represents the 35th district of California, a region of California that encompasses the infamous South Central Los Angeles, that was brought to the attention of the Nation, during the 1992 LA Riots, which Ms. Waters quickly defends as a revolution. (Southgate, 12/13/93) Her district, which is predominantly African American, has suffered from years of urban decay, unemployment is high, families are poor, drugs are abundant, and violence has become a normal everyday occurrence. In such dire conditions, Ms. Waters has come forward as a champion for"her people,"as she affectionately refers to her constituency. Essentially, as a congresswoman, she has made Black America her agenda. She has set this Agenda as her number one priority, which became abundantly clear in the recent Impeachment hearings in Congress. As Ms. Waters' says,"I don't have time to be polite,"and she certainly does not have time to waste on an impeachment process, that has little to with law but more to do with partisan revenge.
Although Waters is clearly dedicated to the African American community, her advocacy for her community undoubtedly provides a voice, to some extent, to all oppressed groups in our society, women, children, the poor and other minorit...
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Over the course of five chapters, the author uses a number of sources, both primary and secondary, to show how the National Negro Congress employed numerous political strategies, and allying itself with multiple organizations and groups across the country to implement a nationwide grassroots effort for taking down Jim Crow laws. Even though the National Negro Congress was unsuccessful in ending Jim Crow, it was this movement that would aide in eventually leading to its end years later.
The history of The Black Civil Rights Movement in the United States is a fascinating account of a group of human beings, forcibly taken from their homeland, brought to a strange new continent, and forced to endure countless inhuman atrocities. Forced into a life of involuntary servitude to white slave owners, African Americans were to face an uphill battle for many years to come. Who would face that battle? To say the fight for black civil rights "was a grassroots movement of ordinary people who accomplished extraordinary things" would be an understatement. Countless people made it their life's work to see the progression of civil rights in America. People like W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, A Phillip Randolph, Eleanor Roosevelt, and many others contributed to the fight although it would take ordinary people as well to lead the way in the fight for civil rights. This paper will focus on two people whose intelligence and bravery influenced future generations of civil rights organizers and crusaders. Ida B.Wells and Mary Mcleod Bethune were two African American women whose tenacity and influence would define the term "ordinary to extraordinary".
Anne Moody’s memoir, Coming of Age in Mississippi, is an influential insight into the existence of a young girl growing up in the South during the Civil-Rights Movement. Moody’s book records her coming of age as a woman, and possibly more significantly, it chronicles her coming of age as a politically active Negro woman. She is faced with countless problems dealing with the racism and threat of the South as a poor African American female. Her childhood and early years in school set up groundwork for her racial consciousness. Moody assembled that foundation as she went to college and scatter the seeds of political activism. During her later years in college, Moody became active in numerous organizations devoted to creating changes to the civil rights of her people. These actions ultimately led to her disillusionment with the success of the movement, despite her constant action. These factors have contributed in shaping her attitude towards race and her skepticism about fundamental change in society.
and the academic endeavour, to illuminate the experiences of African American women and to theorize from the materiality of their lives to broader issues of political economy, family, representation and transformation” (Mullings, page xi)
Although there were numerous efforts to attain full equality between blacks and whites during the Civil Rights Movement, many of them were in vain because of racial distinctions, white oppression, and prejudice. Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi recounts her experiences as a child growing up in Centreville, Mississippi. She describes how growing up in Mississippi in a poor black family changed her views of race and equality, and the events that took place that changed her life forever. She begins her story at the tender age of 4, and describes how her home life changed drastically with the divorce of her parents, the loss of her home, and the constant shuffle from shack to shack as her mother tried to keep food on the table with the meager pay she earned from the numerous, mostly domestic, jobs she took. On most days, life was hard for Anne, and as she got older she struggled to understand why they were living in such poverty when the white people her mother worked for had so many nice things, and could eat more than bread and beans for dinner. It was because of this excessive poverty that Anne had to go into the workforce at such an early age, and learn what it meant to have and hold a job in order to provide her family. Anne learned very young that survival was all about working hard, though she didn’t understand the imbalance between the work she was doing and the compensation she received in return.
Angela Yvonne Davis’ interest in social justice began during her youth when she was exposed firsthand to the hateful and violent consequences of racism. She was born on ...
Amadu, K. (2007). African Americans and U.S. Politics: The Gradual Progress of Black Women in Political Representation. New York: Prentice Hall Publishers.
The Cuban revolution was one that transformed Cuba into an independent socialist society. This revolution sent a message around the globe. The message: “ Socialism can be achieved and capitalism, with its culture stripping mechanism’s can be supplemented”. However, the revolution did leave its mark on Cuba. This can be seen in the events that took place during the early stages of the revolution. The effects of the revolution were positive for certain sections of the population and negative for others.
In recent decades, the contentious issues surrounding climate change and the corresponding effects it likely exerts upon contemporary civilization has developed to become one of the most pressing areas of concern afflicting humanity (Armstrong, 1). Currently, climate change has started to demonstrate its potentially calamitous consequences upon human subsistence practices, and has even begun to alter the very environments that entire societies reside in, theoretically endangering them in both instances (Armstrong, 1). Though the hindrances inherent in climate change are potentially devastating to the preservation of modern society, the problem of climate change itself is not one that is exclusive to the contemporary era. Rather, the harmful
Angelina Grimke and Sojourner Truth were both prominent American civil rights activists of the 19th century who focused on the abolition of slavery and women’s rights issues, respectively. While both of these women challenged the societal beliefs of the United States at the time regarding these civil rights issues, the rhetorical strategies used by each of these women to not only illustrate their respective arguments but also to raise social awareness of these issues was approached in very different fashions. Angelina Grimke promoted the use of white middle-class women’s positions in the household to try to influence the decision makers, or men, around them. On the other hand, Sojourner Truth, a former slave turned women’s rights activist,
In the late evening of February 28th 1930, seventy-five Klu Klux Klan members came to Oakville and proceeded to Ira Johnson’s house, who a black man who had a white woman living with him (Isabel Jones). The Klan then forcibly separated the couple. They took Isabel away from Ira and brought her to her parents. They rounded up Ira’s family and then nailed a cross to their yard and burned it down. They threatened that if they ever saw Ira again with a white girl they would be back for him.(Blackhouse 1999 p.173) When a black citizen alerted the Police Chief of what was going on he did not make any arrests,
Gloria Steinem’s “Living the Revolution” commencement speech highlights the hardships and stereotypes placed on women and men of all ethnicities in general society of the 1970’s decade, and suggests a necessary change is needed in the way we view people in general. Steinem goes on to support her ideas with numerous pieces of evidence. Foremost, she calls attention to the past and present stereotypes and prejudices and suggests that these ideas are “imbedded so deeply in our thinking” that we don’t often realize they are there (5). Secondly, she points out our society’s lack of female and African American role models and that the traditional white male leader is outdated and overdue for an upgrade (12-16). Steinem also puts for...
Not only has she graduated from two exceptional Ivy League colleges (Princeton and Harvard), she is also a lawyer. She was raised on the South Side of Chicago, had opportunities to study at prestigious universities, returned to her hometown, married, and raised two beautiful daughters. Unlike Barack, Michelle has two black parents and a black sibling, and she comes from a city readily associated with black life and politics. She even has a family tree that traces back to American slavery. Observers comfortably frame Michelle Obama as angry Sapphire figure, but how is that possible when she is one out of the few mothers who hold degrees from the most reputable schools around the world. Again, her critique was taken as evidence of her ideational anger. Michelle Obama is the most known example of an African American woman who has worked hard to become who she is today and is probably the most idealistic perfect woman. Still the success and difficulty she has experienced in gaining accurate recognition is emblematic, if not typical, of black women’s citizenship struggles. She is still only seen as the stereotypical black woman in the eyes of supremacist even though she has out succeeded the majority of people today. One could assume that Michelle Obama is someone who could be looked to as faultless representation of how black women can achieve and obtain such incredible power. Unfortunately, not even the first lady is respected even with her credentials. For example. there were attempts to frame her with the common trope of hypersexuality. In the heat of the general election fight, Fox News referred to her as “Barack’s baby mama”. Instead she fights strong against these over rationalized comments because she knows she is better than what they say. If Michelle Obama, the First Lady of the United States, is not recognized as credible, than it is clear that no black woman will ever be
The first part of this essay discusses what the human species has done to deal with the problem of climate change. While some improvements have been made, the problem has not been addressed aggressively enough to stop the damage. What is amazing about this is the denial of so many people that problems exist. If they do realize the risks, they are simply not taking actions to contain the damage.
The earth is a complex system, which continues to evolve and change. Climate change and global warming are currently popular in the political agenda. But what does “climate” really mean? The difference between weather and climate can be conveyed in a single sentence: “Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get.” Based on research of the geologic record, we know that climate change has happened throughout Earth's history and at present, ever-increasing evidence points to the roles that humans play in altering Earth systems. The Earth and its atmosphere receive heat energy from the sun; the atmospheric heat budget of the Earth depends on the balance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing radiation from the planet; which has been constant over the last few thousand years. However present evidence seems to suggest that the recent increase in temperature has been brought about by pollution of the atmosphere, in particular the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide, mostly through Anthropogenic Forcing (human activity) and other various internal and external factors. I...