THE "OTHER" WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH
Written 3/6/2001
Mumia Abu-Jamal, M.A.
"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 tends 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, Rhode Island 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 4 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 slaveowner described her as the "biggest devil that ever lived." The fierce 6 ft. 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, 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, Alabama, 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.
©MAJ 2001
Text © copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved.
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