Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #IdaBWells

Most recents (9)

Happy Tuesday!

#DidYouKnow the origins of Douglass Day helped to inspire #BlackHistoryMonth?

A thread... 1/
Let's go back to the year of 1895.

We can think about Jim Crow. About the rise of lynchings documented in #IdaBWells' Red Record. About the plague of racial injustice across the nation.

That year, Frederick Douglass passed away at the age of seventy-seven. 2/
Frederick Douglass was one of the most famous Americans in the 1800s.

Widely revered, a champion of racial and social justice, his crossing over was a huge loss for his family, his fellow activists, and his adopted community of Washington DC. 3/
Read 11 tweets
Ida B. Wells could vote for President years before Alice Paul or Carrie Chapman Catt.

How?

Read on . . .
Changing state constitutions is hard. Who votes & who doesn’t is determined by each state; big changes almost always need constitutional amendment. Of course, this is why the state-by-state fight took so damn long. But in 1913, Illinois successfully used a different strategy.
Lucy Stone’s husband Henry Blackwell began pushing for “presidential suffrage” back in the 1880s. It was a clever idea: a way to get states to let women vote for President without the laborious process of amending their constitution. Here's how:
Read 17 tweets
1/ Four years ago I wrote on #BlackLivesMatter by putting its ideals into conversation with our greatest thinkers: #IdaBWells #MartinLutherKingJr
#FrederickDouglass #AnnaJuliaCooper #AudreLorde #JamesBaldwin #Langston Hughes #ZoraNealeHurston
goodreads.com/book/show/3233…
2/ My ambition was to honor our cherished tradition of black intellectual work and approach the movement by putting its ideals into conversation with some of our greatest thinkers and writers
3/ Chapter 1 sets the stage with Douglass and Wells grappling with what it means for blacks to find a meaningful place in a young #democratic nation founded on #4racialbondage and murder
Read 8 tweets
THREAD
Why did it take two months for this story to become national news?
I know--#pandemic--but did we stop thinking #BlackLivesMatter?
That last is, of course, rhetorical.

What We Know About the Shooting Death of #AhmaudArbery nytimes.com/article/ahmaud…
The #CoronavirusPandemic has in fact schooled us YET AGAIN that the lives of black & brown people (let's not forget--like our entire leadership has--that kids are still in cages) have diminished meaning and worth to our society. Black & brown people are dying disproportionately.
On Monday Nikole Hannah Jones won the Pulitzer for her astounding work on the #1619Project and a bazillion white people who never even heard of it lashed out. Concomittant with her prize was a posthumous one to #IdaBWells, a brilliant black journalist (1862-1931) long overdue.
Read 6 tweets
Today marks the 100 year anniversary of one of the deadliest anti-black race riots in U.S. history. On September 30, 1919 mobs of white men began murdering more than 200 black sharecroppers in Elaine, Arkansas. A century later a memorial has finally been built.
#ElaineMassacre Image
Afterward the massacre hundreds of black people were corralled into stockades. In a fraud of a trial, twelve men were charged with murder. They eventually avoided execution, but they became known as the Elaine 12. #IdaBWells helped publicize their case.
#ElaineMassacre Image
Elaine, AR is in Phillips County & the memorial was built in the county seat of Helena. While some controversy remains concerning the memorial's placement, Brian Miller, a federal judge whose 4 great uncles were killed in the massacre, explained its significance.
#ElaineMassacre
Read 7 tweets
To all the people, designated White by colonizing nations, who are becoming disillusion by your evangelical or Christian faith: When you walk away from Jesus you are not #woke. You are operating out of the white supremacy you say you abhor. 1/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism
When you walk away from Jesus and Christian faith to be “woke” you are walking away from a faith that sprang from brown, indigenous, colonized people. You’re walking away from faith born on the underside of empire in the context of oppressed peoples. 2/ #LiberatingEvangelicalism
You’re walking away from the faith of enslaved people who found such profound liberation in Jesus that they broke laws to gather together and worship in #trees! 3/
Read 9 tweets
5 generations of African American women!

My great-great-grandmother was born enslaved in Virginia and sold into Mississippi when she was 7. She spent her entire life, except for the last 13 years, enslaved. 1/4
My great-grandmother #IdaBWells was born enslaved in Mississippi and became free when she was 3 years old. She spent most of her life fighting and speaking out against injustice. 2/4
My grandmother was 16 when women got the right to vote and she spent her entire life living in Chicago neighborhoods that were redlined for African Americans.

My mother grew up in the Jim Crow South with separate and unequal everything. 3/4
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The best part of this week were the hours I spent with my friend ⁦@LibnOfCongress⁩. For two and a half hours she allowed me to review original documents written in longhand by my hero, the great #FrederickDouglass.
Allison Cannon from the Manuscript Division of the @librarycongress provided wonderful context as we read Douglass’ letter to his son from his visit to Egypt.
I could barely breathe as I read from Douglass’ eulogy for Abraham Lincoln. Righteous anger, deep grief, and a searing, trenchant, and still relevant analysis of racism in America. #FrederickDouglass @librarycongress
Read 5 tweets
Looking forward to talking about @MLK50Memphis and how to build an amazing team like my crew: @andreamorales @megawatts2000 @jdylan901 @lkleinmann @kirstinlcheers @deadlinedd and many more! @LIONPubs @NABJ #NABJ18
Gonna share some of our good work. We focused on economic justice in the city where MLK was killed. What has Memphis done with King’s sacrifice?

Not enough. mlk50.com/50-years-after…
We surveyed the area’s largest employers and learned that nearly half of them won’t even say if they pay a living wage.

Which, researchers say, says they aren’t. mlk50.com/do-memphis-25-…
Read 9 tweets

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