This week we dove deeper into the historical events of activism in America. With the reading, “ 100 Years towards suffrage: An Overview” and the video “Untold stories of Black Women in the suffrage movement” I was able to gain a much better and very detailed understanding of the history of these movements that have led to today’s changes in society. As mentioned in this week’s video, although we have not broken all the way through from all the challenges set for women, especially black women in history, we have come a very long way within the years. 

This week’s video explained the stories of women in history and how their part in this movement has led to a lot of the freedom we have today. A very thoughtful part of the video was hearing about Ida B Wells’s story. She was an African American journalist, educator, and leader in the civil rights movement. She was born into slavery where she then lost her parents and a sibling due to the Yellow Fever that was spreading quickly at that time. After the Emancipation Proclamation, she was able to move to Tennessee with her siblings where she was able to receive a better salary teaching and was able to raise them. Later on, she became Co-owner and writer for the “Memphis Free Speech and Headlight Newspaper ” Unfortunately throughout the years, she was threatened by a white mob who burned and destroyed her work/office space. I found this very inspiring as she was only 16 when she lost her parents and was able to continue to move forward while raising her siblings and continuing to fight for equality and freedom. Another story I enjoyed learning about is the sorority Delta Sigma Theta. Learning about both of these events was very inspiring as they both had to overcome very difficult circumstances but they didn’t let that stop them from getting to their goal. Because of women like this in history, we now have the rights we do as women in this society, and we will continue to fight like these women to get the real freedom we deserve. 

A post that caught my eye this week was the post made by a classmate, Raquel. They posted an image of a woman tied up with ropes with the words “Politics is no place for women” however it seems like the woman is breaking loose from the ropes. This image speaks a lot more than just that. To me, this image represents the liberation of women being trapped by the laws of them not being able to vote, not having the rights they deserved.  It wasn’t until about 100 years ago when women got the right to vote and a little over 50 years ago when all African Americans were granted this right. As mentioned before, this is only the beginning and we need to continue to fight for the rights we deserve.