#CiteBlackWomen
A generation before the great #IdaBWells, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper spoke for Black women in a fierce debate that included Frederick Douglass, ElizCadyStanton & Susan B Anthony. #CiteBlackWomen #Kwanzaa
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">It’s the 2nd Day of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Kwanzaa?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Kwanzaa</a>! Today we honor Black women who represent <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Kujichagulia?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Kujichagulia</a>—Self Determination—like Ida B. Wells. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Wells’s anti-lynching campaign fiercely defended Black people and rights. Who do you honor? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CiteBlackWomen?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CiteBlackWomen</a> <a href="https://t.co/5r8heM8AT9">pic.twitter.com/5r8heM8AT9</a></p>
— Cite Black Women. (@citeblackwomen) <a href="https://twitter.com/citeblackwomen/status/1210572953630466049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
@citeblackwomen 1866: “While there exists this brutal element in society which tramples upon the feeble and treads down the weak, I tell you that if there is any class of people who need to be lifted out of their airy nothings and selfishness, it is the white women of America.†ðŸ™@marthasjones_Â
Daily Suffragist
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27/12/2019
500 years of women's work
My first surprise of the exhibit #500yearsofwomenswork @<a href="https://twitter.com/GrolierClub" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">grolierclub</a> today was that it was packed. About 100 people came to hear the #lisaungerbaskincollection described by Lisa herself. So many gems: - <br /><br />The pamphlet Ida B Wells wrote with Frederick Douglass & Ferdinand Barnett, sitting at a desk in the Haitian Pavilion at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1873. Ida wanted to explain what visitors to the fair were not seeing, so they wrote "The Reason Why The Colored American is not in the World's Columbian Exposition." It was thrilling to see an original. <br /><br />Wonderful suffrage items from the US and UK, including a gorgeous certificate of honor made by the Pankhursts for Rosa May Billinghurst, a radical disabled suffragette I can’t wait to learn more about. <br /><br />Emma Goldman is a particular interest of the collection, and some choice items are on display. Emma & Alex. Berkman wrote Deportation: Its Meaning and Menace while jailed at Ellis Island, awaiting deportation 100 years ago. <br /><br />If you’re in NYC before Feb 8, the exhibit is free and open most days. <a href="https://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/baskin/introduction" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">The collection is gloriously presented online,</a> item by item:<br /><br />Enjoy! #Suffrage100
Daily Suffragist
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23/01/2020
Alpha Suffrage Club arrives in Washington
<strong>Black women at the Inaugural March, part II</strong><br /><br />A large Illinois delegation--some accounts say 62 people, others 65--came to Washington for the 1913 inauguration suffrage march. #IdaBWells was the only African American in the group. She represented the new Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago. Thread.<br /><br />Two months before, Ida had co-founded Alpha with two white women, Virginia Brooks & Belle Squires. It differed from the Women’s Second Ward Republican Club, which Ida organized in 1910. The Republicans' star was dimming, and being tied to the party was no longer an asset. <br /><br />Alpha was non-partisan, city-wide, and suffrage-focused. Some Black women were skeptical about about the movement, given discrimination by white suffragists and a fear that suffrage➡️more votes for white supremacy. But Ida was determined to engage Black women to win the fight. <br /><br />Alpha Suffrage Club’s first order of business was to send the women to Washington for the march. When they all arrived, the Illinois delegation went to parade headquarters. A Chicago Tribune reporter accompanied the group for the whole trip and reported on what transpired. <br /><br />Grace Trout, leader of the Illinois delegation, burst into the room and announced that Ida couldn’t march with them. She said it wasn’t up to her, it was the decision of NAWSA, Alice Paul, and Alice Stone Blackwell. She claimed they had no choice.<br /><br />A Georgia-born woman from Oak Park agreed: “You are right, it will prejudice southern people against suffrage if we take colored women into our ranks.” Ida was standing right there, and had been a prominent Illinois suffragist longer than most of the women in the room. <br /><br />Absolutely not, said Ida's colleague Virginia Brooks. “We have come down here to march for equal rights. If the women of other states lack moral courage...we are not afraid of public opinion. If the women didn't stand by their principles, the parade will be a farce.” <br /><br />Ida's voice trembled as she spoke about the harm to the cause, not the personal insult. “If the Illinois women do not take a stand now in this great democratic parade then the colored women are lost.” <br /><br />Grace Trout said she’d try, then left to negotiate. Returning, she said that if it were up to her, Ida would march with them, but NAWSA said no. <br /><br />Do you think IdaBWells accepted this? Have you met her? <br /><br />Tune in tomorrow . . .
Daily Suffragist
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29/06/2020
Black Memphis, white Memphis
Julia Hooks bought a ticket at a downtown Memphis theater. It was 1881 and "Hermann the Magician" was a hit. She was making her way to her seat when two policemen grabbed her. They ripped her dress in the struggle, arresting her as she cried: “Let go of me, I am a schoolteacher!”
Hooks filed a complaint against the officers, but they weren’t punished.
Instead, Julia Hooks was fined $5 for disorderly conduct - particularly ironic, because she was about the least disorderly person in Memphis.
A gifted pianist, Julia’s concerts were the center of Black Memphis social life in the 1880s; Ida B Wells met Mary Church Terrell at one of them.
Julia and her sister Mary were the first Black women to graduate from Berea College in Kentucky, which was integrated until 1904.
I’ll return to Mary Britton, who became a well-known journalist in Louisville and then the first Black woman doctor in KY.
Another sister, Hattie, killed herself after being slut-shamed by Ida B Wells - also a story for another day.
Where was I? Julia. She was eventually known as the Angel of Beale Street for her good works. She started a classical music society, then an integrated music school whose pupils included WC Handy(!), and later an Orphans & Old Folks Home that she funded with her concert earnings.
But when the police were dragging her out of the theater because management had suddenly designated the section for whites only, she called out “I’m a schoolteacher” to demonstrate her respectability in a way that white people might understand.
Paula Giddings explains why teaching was an esteemed profession for women: “In Memphis, a certified teacher not only had to pass a written exam, she also had to demonstrate ‘good moral character’ and ‘the purest and truest of natures’ to the satisfaction of a biracial board.”
During Reconstruction, when Black men voted and held state & local office, Memphis reformers lobbied hard for Black schools & Black teachers. There was only one high school, but it was a good one.
And incredibly, men and women, blacks and whites, were paid equally to teach.
Pay equity in schools owed in part to Memphis’ leading white suffragist, Elizabeth Avery Meriwether. Throughout the 1870s she lobbied tirelessly for equal pay for male and female teachers.
When 3 teachers were fired for “holding too many of Mrs. Meriwether’s views” - the actual reason the superintendent gave for their dismissal! - she led a 7-month fight that ended with them reinstated and a new superintendent installed.
Essentially a lone voice, she demanded the all-male school board be replaced by a gender-balanced group. Equal pay legislation she helped pass was undermined in a closed-door session, but her lobbying had impact.
After teacher salaries were slashed in 1878 due to budget cuts, men and women were paid the same in both the Black and white school systems.
One result was that white men left teaching entirely. Another was that Black women had access to a career.
Meriwether was Memphis’ most visible advocate for women’s equality through the 1870s & 80s.
She demanded fair divorce laws, equal pay, and votes for white women.
In 1876 she rented out a local theater to give her own lecture on women’s rights under the law.
The same year she lobbied the national Democratic convention - remember, they were the party of Southern white conservatism - to include women’s suffrage in their platform.
Meriwether was an active member of the National Woman Suffrage Assoc, even joining Susan B Anthony on a speaking tour.
In 1880 she submitted 2 petitions to the NWSA national convention, one signed by 130 white women and the other by 110 black women, courtesy of her servant.
She sent both petitions with a note describing how the servant, whom she doesn’t name, heard her describing suffrage to guests and after dinner offered to collect signatures from black women. “She took the paper and procured these 110 signatures against the strong opposition...
"...of black men who in some cases threatened to whip their wives if they signed. At length the opposition was so great my servant had not courage to face it. She feared bodily harm...by the black men.”
Meriwether doesn’t explain why the white women gathered barely more names.
One more thing about Elizabeth Meriwether:
In 1867 she and her husband Minor hosted a gathering in their home, which they had reestablished after spending the war in exile. Elizabeth followed Minor, a Confederate officer. Their 3rd son (Lee, of course) was born on the road.
Minor survived the war, as did fellow Memphis Confederates Matt Galloway and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Reunited in the Meriwethers' living room, they founded the local chapter of the KKK.
Elizabeth’s contribution was to suggest that their platform include votes for white women. /
Daily Suffragist
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01/08/2020
Founding of the NAACP
The building where @<a href="https://twitter.com/NAACP" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NAACP</a> and The Crisis were founded, and where W.E.B.DuBois wrote editorials supporting voting rights for women, still stands. 20 Vesey Street was built in 1907 as the headquarters of the New York Evening Post and the Nation. 🧵 <br /><br />The paper and the magazine were owned by Oswald Garrison Villard, grandson of WmLloydGarrison and heir to a railroad fortune. <br /><br />Villard wrote “The Call†- a manifesto published on Abraham Lincoln’s 100th birthday that led to the founding of the NAACP. Villard was white, as were most of the luminaries that signed The Call and convened the conference from which NAACP grew. They envisioned an interracial organization fighting lynching and segregation. <br /><br />White people had created the problem, Villard believed, and they should help fix it. <br /><br />The conveners were sure they were doing a good thing, and they were people unused to being challenged. So they were startled when #IdaBWells and Monroe Trotter questioned them about their motives, their sincerity, and their desire to placate Booker T Washington. <br /><br />For Ida’s willingness - as ever - to say the uncomfortable thing, disrupt the pleasant proceedings, demand accountability, she ended up on the outs. No one had done more to fight lynching, one of NAACP’s key issues, but Ida was only grudgingly added to the founders' roster. <br /><br />From the very beginning, NAACP had detractors to its left and to its right, but it grew steadily from the two-room office in the Post building where DuBois worked, and Oswald Garrison Villard & Mary White Ovington fundraised. <a href="https://forgotten-ny.com/2013/09/20-vesey-street-downtown/">Take a look 👇</a>#Suffrage100
Daily Suffragist
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16/02/2020
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1261858963651465219" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">More on Vesey Street building</a>
Founding of the NACW
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">In 1893, inspired by Ida B Wells' call to do something to fight lynching, Josephine St Pierre Ruffin founded the Woman's Era Club in Boston. </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1"></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Two years later she invited dozens of other Black women's clubs that had sprung up around the country to gather for a 3-day meeting. </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1"></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The result was a watershed: in July 1895, the National Conference of Colored Women united 36 clubs in 12 states. Mary Church Terrell simultaneously organized the National League of Colored Women in DC. By 1896 they had merged to create the National Association of Colored Women. </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1"></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">30+ years after emancipation, NACW was an idea whose time had come. It quickly grew to represent 50,000 women in more than 1,000 clubs. </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1"></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">(For the record, IdaBWells thought it should have been "Afro-American" instead of "Colored.") </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1"></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">NACW was unique, Paula Giddings explains, for being independent: not a women's auxiliary of a Black men's group nor a minority chapter of a white women's group. </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1"></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">@<a href="https://twitter.com/marthasjones_"><span class="s2">MarthaSJones_</span></a> describes the clubs as "spaces that encouraged black women's leadership, independent thought and activism." </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1"></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">They were also crucibles for voter engagement. In Chicago, for example, women won the right to vote for school board in 1891. The Great Migration had begun & the Black population of Chicago was skyrocketing. "As black men in the South were being turned away from polling places, black women in the North were gearing up to vote." @marthasjones_ </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1"></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">In women's clubs and church groups, black women were "rallying, marching, vetting candidates, electioneering, voting, and even running for local office."</span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1"></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">Where Black women could vote in the 1890s, they voted Republican. (The slightly-less-racist party at the time.) </span></p>
<p class="p2"><span class="s1"></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1">As Prof. Jones said recently @<a href="https://twitter.com/bwln_nyu"><span class="s2">bwln_nyu</span></a>, "One group of women in America has voted as a block from the beginning - Black women." #BlackSuffragists #Suffrage100</span></p>
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1232801115231703041" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
26/2/2020
How to be anti-racist
<strong>Black women at the Inaugural March, part III</strong><br /><br />Ida B Wells is the hero of our story. At the 1913 suffrage march she was 50 years old, mother of 4, an established community leader in Chicago. <br /><br />But since white women are looking for anti-racist models, let’s spend a moment on Ida’s colleagues Virginia Brooks & Belle Squire.🧵 <br /><br />When we left off, the Illinois suffrage delegation had just confirmed that Ida was being booted from the group at the insistence of the organizers. Virginia Brooks objected, loudly. She and Belle Squire had co-founded the new Alpha Suffrage Club with Ida. [<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1278156775007686658" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><span>Alpha Suffrage Club arrives in Washington</span></a>]<br /><br />Belle Squire was Ida’s contemporary. She founded the No Vote, No Tax League, first in Cook County and then throughout the state. She led more than 5,000 Illinois women in refusing to pay taxes until they could vote. She is on the right👇ðŸ¾in 1911. So much in this photo. <br /><br />Belle got attention for insisting on being called “Mrs†Squire, though she was not married. “Why should a woman remain Miss until death or marriage?" she asked. "The boy changes his title from master to mister as soon as he wishes--as soon as he gets into long pants <br /><br />"and is introduced to a razor. They say it's confusing. They will not know then whether we are single or married. I don't think it is anybody's business what we are. Why should we be obliged to print our marital relations on our business cards? Men don't." 🔥🔥🔥 <br /><br />Virginia Brooks was 27, a generation younger than Belle and Ida. She grew up in Hyde Park, where her parents owned boardinghouses. When her father died, she inherited property in West Hammond (now Calumet City), on the Illinois/Indiana border. She and her mother moved there. <br /><br />Illinois women won school suffrage back in 1891. In 1912 Brooks ran for West Hammond school board and won. In addition to her local political work, her suffrage activity spanned Illinois and Indiana. She was an active member of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association. <br /><br />When Ida was ejected from the Illinois delegation, Virginia Brooks & Belle Squire announced that they would join her if she were willing to march in a different section. Ida appeared to consent. Shortly thereafter everyone left to assemble for the march. <br /><br />As the delegation lined up, all three women were missing. Virginia Brooks appeared & went looking for the other two. She found Belle Squire but not Ida. The two of them concluded she had decided to boycott, understandably. Then, as they began to march,<br /><br />“Suddenly from the crowd on the sidewalk Mrs. Barnett walked calmly out to the delegation and assumed her place at the side of Mrs. Squire. There was no question raised . . . and she finished the parade.†Photo👇ðŸ¾ran in the Chicago Tribune. #BlackSuffragists #CenturyofStruggle
Daily Suffragist
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30/06/2020
Ida B Takes on the Chicago Tribune
Ida B at work. Another glimpse of the master persuader, via the beautiful 2d edition of her autobiography. Great foreword by @<a href="https://twitter.com/eveewing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">eveewing</a> & afterword by @<a href="https://twitter.com/MichelleDuster" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">MichelleDuster</a> about preserving the legacy. 🧵 <br /><br />In 1900 the Chicago Tribune runs stories lauding the benefits of segregated schools. They interview racist local parents and superintendents of segregated systems in St. Louis, Baltimore & Washington DC. <br /><br />Ida’s husband observes that @<a href="https://twitter.com/chicagotribune" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">chicagotribune</a> is on a segregationist crusade. <br /><br />Ida writes the editor, pointing out that “everybody had been quoted on the subject of separate schools except those most vitally concerned--the Negroes.†She asks if he’ll meet with a delegation to discuss. <br /><br />The editor doesn’t reply, so Ida shows up at his office. <br /><br />He ignores her, assuming any Black woman at his doorstep is soliciting funds for her church. Ida laughs it off and demands his attention. <br /><br />He is utterly unsympathetic to the school segregation question, and they move quickly to the heart of the matter: political power. <br /><br />“He said that he did not believe that it was right that ignorant Negroes should have the right to vote and to rule white people [when] they were in the majority.†<br /><br />Ida replies that she doesn’t think “white men in the First Ward flophouses†are any more worthy of the franchise. <br /><br />“Even so, I was not disposed to condemn all white people because of that situation nor deprive the better class of them of their rights in the premises.†<br /><br />The editor says he doesn’t have time to waste on a meeting, but he’ll publish her letter, space permitting. <br /><br />“I told him that the delegation of Negroes whom I had hoped to bring to him would not waste his time, because they were too busy at their different occupations and could ill afford to waste their time or his own in fruitless discussion.†🔥💜 <br /><br />The editor, Robert W. Patterson, belonged to one of the most powerful families in Chicago. His father-in-law was Joseph Medill, owner of the Tribune & Mayor of Chicago in the 1870s. Ida knows a boycott won’t work - the community is too small. So she changes strategy. Jul <br /><br />Ida asks Jane Addams to invite the leading citizens of Chicago to Hull House @<a href="https://twitter.com/JAHHM" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">JAHHM</a> for a meeting that Sunday. <br /><br />Addams gathers editors of the competing papers, ministers and rabbis, white club women, and members of the Board of Ed to hear Ida make the case. <br /><br />“I told how separate schools always meant inferior schools for Negro children while at the same time making a double tax burden. I told of my interview with the editor of the Tribune and how I had been made to realize that there was absolute indifference to whatever the Negro thought or felt about the matter...It was their civic and financial influence which the Tribune respected...Would they use that power to help us, the weaker brothers, secure here in Chicago an equal chance with the children of the white races?†<br /><br />It works. As a result of Ida’s effort, Jane Addams leads a group of seven eminent Chicagoans to meet with the Tribune. The articles stop. The @chicagotribune doesn’t shill for segregated schools again during Ida’s lifetime. #BlackSuffragists #CenturyofStruggle #Vanguard
Daily Suffragist
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07/07/2020
Ida B Wells Film
Join me! I just gave to make <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-light-of-truth-a-monument-for-ida-b-wells" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">this film</a> about #IdaBWells and the creation of a new monument to her in Chicago. I want every kid to know Ida's name. Give if you can, and spread the word.
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1282431129623166977" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
07/12/2020
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">7/16 is <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IdaBWells?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IdaBWells</a>' 158th bday. Let's raise $15,800 to get <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/the-light-of-truth-a-monument-for-ida-b-wells" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">this film</a> made.<a href="https://twitter.com/prisonculture?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@prisonculture</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/nhannahjones?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nhannahjones</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/chrislhayes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@chrislhayes</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/BrentNYT?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BrentNYT</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/jcheiffetz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jcheiffetz</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/JulieScelfo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JulieScelfo</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/SantitaJ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SantitaJ</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/lollybowean?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@lollybowean</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/TPSM2020?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TPSM2020</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/wendi_c_thomas?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@wendi_c_thomas</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DailySuffragist</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/rochelleriley?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@rochelleriley</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/KeishaBlain?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KeishaBlain</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/worldlibraries?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@worldlibraries</a> <a href="https://t.co/W1uHbO0IiB">https://t.co/W1uHbO0IiB</a></p>
— MLDwrites (@MichelleDuster) <a href="https://twitter.com/MichelleDuster/status/1282339161639354370?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 12, 2020</a><br /><br /><br /></blockquote>
Ida B. Wells, Owner & Editor
Ida B Wells didn’t love being a teacher, but as she built an adult life in Memphis, she began working as a reporter. Realizing that owning & editing her own paper was the only way to make a living as a journalist, Wells invested in The Memphis Free Speech and Headlight. Thread. <br /><br />Her new career ended her old one: after protesting in print the “few and utterly inadequate buildings” for Black students in Memphis schools, as well as corruption on the school board, Wells' teaching contract was not renewed. She had found her calling. <br /><br />9Ida B Wells' paper Free Speech was in demand in rural towns, where often 1 person would read it aloud in public. When the owners learned that vendors were cheating illiterate buyers by selling them the wrong paper, they started printing Free Speech on distinctive pink paper. <br /><br />What made Ida B Wells so fearless? Mia Bay’s biography, "To Tell the Truth Freely," argues that growing up at the peak of Reconstruction, with politically active parents, gave Ida a precious taste of a world in which Black people had power.<br /><br />Hear Bay & @<a href="https://twitter.com/nhannahjones" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">nhannahjones</a> on @<a href="https://twitter.com/LewisPants" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">LewisPants</a> podcast about Ida B Wells' legacy of activist journalism.<iframe width="100%" height="482" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>No image today. As @<a href="https://twitter.com/TennHistory" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">TennHistory</a> explains: “No copy of the Free Speech survives. As with the other 25 black-owned newspapers of the era, no library or archive has preserved copies." All we have are partial reprints in other papers.
Daily Suffragist
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22/11/2019