Who tells your story?
Title
Who tells your story?
Description
Have you heard of the National Women’s Conference? Do you know that in 1977, 2,000 delegates representing the racial and economic makeup of each US state & territory met in Houston? And that it was funded by the federal govt? Thread. Photo by Jo Freeman.
Congresswomen Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Patsy Mink made it happen. +Barbara Jordan they were the Squad of their day - but when there were 16 women in Congress total.😳
Their bill funded 56 conferences in each state & territory over 2 years, to debate what mattered to women.
Then delegates gathered in Houston. Maya Angelou opened. Dorothy Height, Margaret Mead, Coretta Scott King, & 3 First Ladies were there. Resolutions were debated on abortion, lesbian rights, the ERA, labor, disability, language access, deportations, Indigenous rights & more.
Now imagine if in 2002 we had organized for the 25th anniversary of the National Women’s Conference. Bush the Son was in his 1st term. Sept 11 was very fresh. Patsy Mink was still in Congress; joined by @RepMaxineWaters, who had organized the 300-woman Black Caucus in Houston.
A different convention once got an anniversary party. In 1873, the suffrage movement was in trouble. Sex scandals had tarnished the brand. The movement’s best legal strategy had failed. It was literally split into two different factions, whose leaders hated each other.
9ElizCadyStanton & Susan B Anthony, who led one faction, decided that celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention would boost spirits, assert their dominance as the genuine leaders, and focus a fragmented feminist movement on the importance of the vote. They created a foundation myth out of an event less representative & significant than the National Women’s Conference in 1977. But in doing so they insisted that women’s actions and history had meaning, and shouldn’t be ignored.
If we don’t tell our own stories, no one will.
p.s. @googledocs told me Congresswomen was misspelled above. Suggested changing to Congresswoman or Congressmen. #Suffrage100 #TowardEqualityÂ
Congresswomen Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Patsy Mink made it happen. +Barbara Jordan they were the Squad of their day - but when there were 16 women in Congress total.😳
Their bill funded 56 conferences in each state & territory over 2 years, to debate what mattered to women.
Then delegates gathered in Houston. Maya Angelou opened. Dorothy Height, Margaret Mead, Coretta Scott King, & 3 First Ladies were there. Resolutions were debated on abortion, lesbian rights, the ERA, labor, disability, language access, deportations, Indigenous rights & more.
Now imagine if in 2002 we had organized for the 25th anniversary of the National Women’s Conference. Bush the Son was in his 1st term. Sept 11 was very fresh. Patsy Mink was still in Congress; joined by @RepMaxineWaters, who had organized the 300-woman Black Caucus in Houston.
A different convention once got an anniversary party. In 1873, the suffrage movement was in trouble. Sex scandals had tarnished the brand. The movement’s best legal strategy had failed. It was literally split into two different factions, whose leaders hated each other.
9ElizCadyStanton & Susan B Anthony, who led one faction, decided that celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention would boost spirits, assert their dominance as the genuine leaders, and focus a fragmented feminist movement on the importance of the vote. They created a foundation myth out of an event less representative & significant than the National Women’s Conference in 1977. But in doing so they insisted that women’s actions and history had meaning, and shouldn’t be ignored.
If we don’t tell our own stories, no one will.
p.s. @googledocs told me Congresswomen was misspelled above. Suggested changing to Congresswoman or Congressmen. #Suffrage100 #TowardEqualityÂ
Creator
Daily Suffragist
Source
Date
15/12/2020
Files
Collection
Citation
Daily Suffragist, “Who tells your story?,” Daily Suffragist, accessed April 25, 2024, https://dailysuffragist.omeka.net/items/show/188.