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Lifting as We Climb: The Story of America’s First Black Women’s Club | Women’s History Month

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By Jessica Lamb / Women’s Museum of California

One of the most significant women’s clubs of all time was formed by black women for the advancement and empowerment of black communities. It is also the first and oldest national Black Organization, and it is known as the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs.

For Black Americans, the post-abolition era was characterized by a shadow of violence, hardship, and oppression. Plagued by social issues like poverty, illiteracy, and poor working conditions, black communities recognized a resounding need for justice and reform. The rise of Jim Crow Laws gave way to heightened racism, then to widespread violence as lynchings threatened the safety and sovereignty of African Americans.

Especially in the South, white communities ignored the dire call to end racism and racial violence. In 1896, that call became even more urgent when a journalist named James Jacks delivered a horrifying response to a letter asking him to publicly condemn lynching. Jacks specifically attacked black women in his publication, describing them as “prostitutes” and “thieves” who were “devoid of morality”. His words demonstrated that much of the country was too enmeshed in it’s archaic, dangerous views of race to come to the aid of its black citizens.   [Read more…]

History of Women’s Movements, Part II

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Holly Kemble / Women’s Museum of California

Second Wave Feminism, also known as The Women’s Liberation Movement, was a wave of feminism from the 1960’s to the early 1980’s that rallied around women’s issues such as gender roles, marital rights, reproductive rights, domestic violence, rape, and divorce laws.

Second Wave Feminism followed a period of highs and lows for women’s equality and came to fruition nearly 40 years after First Wave Feminism. Whereas First Wave Feminism was interested in legally changing the rights of women, Second Wave Feminism sought to change how women were viewed in society.

The notion to change women’s portrayal in society came about after the 1950’s era in the United States, often referred to as the “Golden Age” or the “Fabulous 50’s.” While this era was a time of prosperity in the United States with American’s buying homes, cars, and new technologies, the 1950’s also popularized narrow views of women due in large part to the ways women were portrayed in the media.   [Read more…]

ACLU: California Students Have the Right to Protest

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By Edward Sifuentes / ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties

Ahead of planned student walkouts this month, the ACLU of California has advised school officials across the state to adhere to constitutional and state laws protecting students who are expressing themselves politically.

Citing California Education Code, the ACLU stated that students may not be suspended for participating in walkouts or off-campus protests. School officials may choose to punish students less harshly (or not at all) for participating in walk-outs and protests, as long as all expressive activity is treated equally regardless of content or viewpoint.

“The First Amendment prohibits schools from disciplining a student more harshly for missing class for a protest than for any other unexcused absence,” said Peter Eliasberg, Manheim Family Attorney for First Amendment Rights at the ACLU of Southern California.   [Read more…]

Industrial Workers of the World Returns to San Diego

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Industrial Workers Of The World (IWW) Returns To San Diego

The Industrial Workers of the World has (re)chartered a San Diego General Membership Branch. The IWW is a union for all workers, regardless of employment, status, race, or orientation, since 1905. From 1907 San Diego-Tijuana IWW members have been instrumental in the Mexican Revolution, the San Diego Free Speech Fight, and organizing in our region.

By IWW / new indicator

For the first time in several decades, the IWW, also known as “the Wobblies”, is organizing workers again in San Diego. The IWW’s General Executive Board has issued a new charter for a San Diego General Membership Branch (GMB). A “branch” is the IWW term for a union local.

“We are an international union with autonomous locals, independent of all political parties, with a bottom-up structure, by and for workers” says the new Branch Secretary, Preston Chipps. He continued, “The IWW was founded in 1905 and the first union in this country to welcome women and all races.” Chipps is an old hand in the labor movement in San Diego and is the retired chair of the San Diego State University (SDSU) Labor Council, the coalition of campus unions.   [Read more…]

History of Women’s Movements, Part I

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Holly Kemble / Women’s Museum of California

First Wave Feminism occurred in the late 19th to early 20th centuries with the mission of legally changing the rights of women.

During this time there were a variety of laws that kept women silent both professionally and at home. First Wave feminists saw that this was a problem and made it their aim to grant women legal rights in the United States. With legal equality in mind, pioneering feminists such as Alice Paul, Margaret Sanger, and Frances Willard tackled issues like women’s suffrage, contraception, and domestic abuse.

What was profound about the work that these women and others did during First Wave Feminism, was that it was instrumental to other causes that did not pertain to women. The Women’s Suffrage Movement first banned together with the Abolitionist Movement to secure the rights of all peoples, the use of contraceptives was produced as a means to control poverty rates, and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union used their influence to fight for labor laws and prison reform. With these aspects in mind, it is fair to say that First Wave Feminism was not just about implementing laws to improve the lives of women, First Wave Feminism was also about bringing awareness to other marginalized groups.   [Read more…]

On PI Day, We Mourn the Passing of Stephen Hawking

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By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos

Stephen Hawking was still in his final year at Oxford when he noticed what he first passed off as growing “clumsiness.” But he was soon diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was 21. While it’s often thought of as a disease that strikes older people, ALS can afflict people of any age and diagnoses uses presages a rapid decline. He completed his graduate work on crutches. By the time he was appointed a visiting professor at  Caltech, he could no longer write, his speech was becoming distorted and he was in a wheelchair. By the time he returned to Cambridge, he was all but completely paralyzed.

And yet … And yet … he completed decades of work in astrophysics, defining for the first time many of the properties and behaviors of black holes. His 1974 work that showed how black holes could emit radiation brought together quantum physics and large-scale objects, in a way that both challenged accepted notions, and made Hawking one of the youngest ever Fellows of the Royal Academy. He was sometimes so on the leading edge that he both published a new theory, then published the paper that disproved it.   [Read more…]

These 3 Women Could Change the California Justice System for Good

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By Liz Posner / AlterNet

District attorneys can play a major role in reducing (or amplifying) race-based incarceration in America’s largest cities. Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King announced in February that he is launching a political action committee to help elect reform-minded DA candidates and draw national attention to the issue. “No position in America, no single individual has a bigger impact on the criminal justice system—including police brutality, but the whole crisis of mass incarceration in general—than your local district attorney,” King said. “They are the gatekeepers of America’s justice system.”

In the past several years, progressive newcomers have unseated conservative old-guard incumbents in places like Caddo Parish, Louisiana, Philadelphia, Houston, Denver, and Jacksonville, to great effect.

The importance of diversifying the office of district attorney cannot be overstated. Across the country, 95 percent of district attorneys are white, and only 1 percent are women of color. Justice reform experts argue that the lack of representation for communities that are over-policed, over-arrested and over-charged is a major factor in the mass incarceration of people of color. Across the U.S., grassroots efforts are underway to reshape the justice system by choosing new progressive leaders who reflect the communities they serve.   [Read more…]

Health Care is Still the Number One Economic Issue

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By David Akadjian / Daily Kos

Since the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting, there’s been a lot of talk about reasonable gun violence prevention laws. If you look at surveys, most people support them. But one of the issues we face with implementing background checks or any gun violence prevention laws is that, for conservatives, guns are an economic concern.

Different conservatives will phrase this differently but what it comes down to for them is that property must be protected at all costs, and they feel this is key to the economy. Guns are an emotional issue to conservatives, especially rural conservatives, in a way that they aren’t viewed as important to the economy by liberals.

If past experience is any indicator, the economy is the most important issue to Americans. This is what people vote on.  Because of this, the Republican strategy for the 2018 midterm elections is going to be this:

  1. Take credit for the economy
  2. Paint Democrats as caring only about identity issues or hating Trump because of identity issues

  [Read more…]

5 Japanese-American Women Activists Left Out of U.S. History Books | Women’s History Month

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A herstory lesson about five women whose World War II internment inspired them to action.

By Nina Wallace / Yes! Magazine / This article was adapted from a previous version published by Densho.

From African American activists critical to the 1963 March on Washington to the Japanese American women among the 120,000 wrongly imprisoned by a panic-stricken and—let’s be honest—racist United State government after Pearl Harbor, history has a nasty tendency of suppressing the role women played in major social movements throughout the 20th century. 

As an antidote to this historical stifling of strong female voices, here’s a little herstory lesson about five women whose World War II incarceration inspired them to fight back. And no, they don’t care if they’re hurting your stereotypes about quiet, submissive Asian women.   [Read more…]

The 8 Women on U.S. Currency | Women’s History Month

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By Melissa Jones / Women’s Museum of California

[In 2016] our country received some exciting news: Eight women will soon be represented on our money. Why is this exciting? Open up your wallet and you will see green paper bills with white men in the center of them. We carry these faces everywhere with us; they enable us to provide our loved ones with food, shelter and protection. These face represent the heart of America, it’s greatest accomplishments and heroes folded into our wallets.   [Read more…]

It Will Take a Political Revolution to Cure the Epidemic of Depression

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We need to change the nature of work, community and wealth distribution.

By Michael Bader / Alternet

What causes depression and anxiety? I have been a practicing psychologist and psychoanalyst for almost 40 years and have seen hundreds of patients suffering from both. In my experience, some factors are obvious. People who suffer from depression and anxiety have experienced stresses and traumas in their development that predispose them to mood disorders. Garden-variety psychodynamic theory teaches us that issues involving loss, neglect, guilt, and rejection usually figure prominently in the backgrounds of people who present with significant symptoms of depression and anxiety.

In addition, over 50 years of research into the neurobiology of mood disorders strongly suggests that genetic and biological factors usually accompany, if not underlie these painful affective states. As a result of these assumptions, the treatment of depression today usually relies heavily on pharmacology, and drug companies have spent billions making sure this explanation is widely accepted. Some one in five US adults is taking at least one drug for a psychiatric problem; nearly one in four middle-aged women in the United States is taking antidepressants at any given time; and around one in 10 boys at American high schools are being given powerful stimulants to make them focus.

Since it’s well known that psychological events produce biological changes, it remains debatable whether or not disorders of our biochemistry are causes or effects. What we do know is that untold amounts of money have been spent by the pharmaceutical industry to finance research and public relations designed to enshrine biochemistry and pharmacology as primary in the diagnosis and treatment of depression and anxiety.

  [Read more…]

Can Schools Discipline Students for Protesting?

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By Vera Eidelman / ACLU – Speak Freely

Students around the country are turning last week’s heartbreaking school shooting in Parkland, Florida, into an inspiring and exemplary push for legislative change. In the last few days, many people have asked whether schools can discipline students for speaking out. The short answer? It depends on when, where, and how the students decide to express themselves.   [Read more…]

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