The Association for the Study of African American Life and History announced earlier this year that for 2012, the theme is “Black Women in American Culture and History.” Here is an excerpt from the group’s announcement of the theme:
From the American Revolution to the present, African American women have played a myriad of critical roles in the making of our nation. Their labor and leadership, their motherhood and patriotism, and their intellect and artistic expression have all enriched both the African American community and the nation at large. In slavery and freedom, their struggles have been at the heart of the human experience, and their triumps over racism and sexism are a testimonial to our common human spirit.
Planned future themes are: (for 2013) “The 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation;” (for 2014) “The Golden Jubilee of the Civil Rights Act;” and (for 2015) “A Century of Black Life, History and Culture.”
For more info, see here.
The image above is from diversitystore.com and features these women:
- Rosa Parks
- Michelle Obama
- Ida B Wells
- Harriet Tubman
- Sojourner Truth
- Bessie Coleman
- Madam CJ Walker
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Mary McLeod Bethune
- Billie Holliday
- Daisy Lee Gatson
- Dorothy Irene Height
- Marian Wright Edelman
- Phillis Wheatley
- Josephine Baker
- Lucy Eldine Gonzalez Parsons
We need a poster of African-American women in law. Let’s start with Sadie Alexander, Jane Matilda Bolin, Yvonne Burke, Inez C. Fields, Ruth Cavers Flowers, Jacqueline Guild Lutie Lytle, Constance Baker Motley, Jane Cleo Marshall, Pauli Murray, Rachel E. Pruden-Herndon, Charlotte Ray and Lucia Theodosia Thomas. And that’s not even venturing fully into the second half of the twentieth century.
-Bridget Crawford
The HBI (Hadassah-Brandeis Institute) at Brandeis University is accepting applications for our spring 2013 seminar focusing on Gender, Culture, Religion and the Law. Scholars working on exploring conflicts between women’s claims to gender equality and legal norms justified in terms of religious and cultural traditions, and those examining the status of women under religious law, either within a single tradition, or using cross-cultural or interdisciplinary approaches are invited to apply for this semester long residency.
A man admits that, when drunk, he tried to have sex with an eighteen-year-old girl; she is arrested and denies they had intercourse, but finally begs God’s forgiveness. Then she is publicly hanged alongside her attacker. These events took place in 1644, in Boston, where today they would be viewed with horror. How–and when–did such a complete transformation of our culture’s attitudes toward sex occur?
Via The (UK) Telegraph, this story of vandalism to a billboard outside an Anglican church in Auckland, New Zealand:
Born in Boston on September 30, 1946, the oldest of Sydney and Ida Tatelman Hyman’s three daughters, Paula attended public schools and supplementary Hebrew schools. She enrolled simultaneously at Radcliffe College and Hebrew Teachers College of Boston, earning undergraduate degrees at both institutions. She went on to Columbia University, where she studied alongside such scholars as Gerson Cohen and Ismar Schorsch, and where she received her master’s degree and Ph.D. in Jewish history.
Over at 
women accepted remains very low. At Alternative Reproductive Resources, [president and founder Robin] von Halle says that although she receives up to 40 or 50 inquiries a day, perhaps five percent of those women go on to donate (“You have to be accepted and you also have to follow through” with the estimated three month process, she says.) Part of the reason the rejection rate is so high is that women may not know what factors will make them ineligible to donate their eggs — clinics don’t necessarily make the information public. “If the secret is out, then no one will tell the truth on their applications,” says [Mary] Fusillo [, founder and director of a Houston surrogacy agency]. [Souad] Dreyfus [director of a Florida surrogacy agency] has another take: “If you put this list out there, a lot of people will disqualify themselves,” as I would have done. But this lack of transparency may cause women to get their hopes up in vain. This is especially troubling given that many women consider egg donation after a life setback –- job loss, unexpected expenses, or a family tragedy might leave them emotionally and fiscally vulnerable. “A lot of young women, when they make that decision, there’s no room for rejection,” Dreyfus says. * * *