Things To Do: Women's History Month

March 02, 2023

Things To Do: Women's History Month

March is Woman's History Month in the United States, and this year, in 2023, The American Mastodon Publication would like to help Black America set the narrative. Women's History, is not solely for the profit and capitalism by Large American Corporations, but for the education and remembrance of the long history of Women & Women Suffrage in America. In 1978, The Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women began Women's History Week to correspond with the celebration of International Women's Day (March 8). The Week was endorsed by President Jimmy Carter and later in 1987, due to the lobbying efforts of The National Women's History Alliance to the US Congress, March would be designated, Women's History Month.

The plight of women in the United States and the world is dynamic, complex, and non-monolithic. This means, the treatment of women in various cultures and societies is not the same and varies from culture to culture. The Women's Movement in America has its foundations in the social and political equality movements of Middle & Upper Class White American Women. There aims were rights to own property, marital freedoms, political or suffrage equality, and employment eligibility rights. And these noble goals in tandem with their social movement with figures like, Dolly Madison, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, helped women in America achieve a progressive and evolving status. Still, it is highly important to make the distinction between the experience of Middle-Upper Class White American Women and Black Women in the United States. The Black Woman in the United States was brought to the country as chattel, captured, and often the victim of the most heinous crimes in America, as endured in enslavement, alongside the Black Male. The Black American Woman, did not share in the rights to own property, marital freedoms, political equality, labor rights or any of the same experience or treatment, as the White Woman, and the successes of The Women's Movement, most often never apply to the Black American Woman. We must not forget how the rape of the Black women was routinely legitimized for the majority of American History in the United States and that The American Medical Association began with experimentation of the body of Black Women. The line of distinction must be clearly defined within the Women's Movement, or the Black Woman will be manipulated and used for the purpose of achieving goals that are not necessarily beneficial for the Black American woman, or her family. Thus, this Women's History Month, the American Mastodon Publication will celebrate the Black American Woman and her experience, in tandem with the great successes of Black Women and Men, whose plight is inextricably bound together and must not be shrewdly misinterpreted or jeopardized by the attempt of the dominant American society to continue to use the Black American Women as chattel or, even a tool against the Black Male, Black Family, and ultimately, herself. Outside of the Americas, the African Woman has an entirely different experience and the successes vary.

This year, in 2023, we would like to reignite the spirit of commemoration of the African American Woman's experience. In order to achieve this, the narrative of African Americans must be directed by African Americans with meticulous care. Thus, we would like to challenge all African Americans to seek out their elders, learn the stories of their families, plan Family Reunions, Family Brunches, and to redraw Family Trees. We would also like to encourage African American Tours of Black Museums and African American Historical sites across the United States. The plight of the Black American Woman is inextricably intertwined with the Black Man and the Black family, and cannot exist in a vacuum by herself. In the American society which has created the Black Woman, there is no place more dangerous for our daughters. Therefore, we will hold our women up and tell their stories with the goal of togetherness and unity with the goals of the African American family, and not in conflict with Blackness, progress outside or without Blackness, or the experience of Black people from which she comes. These are Things to Do: Women's History Month 2023 (updating continuously)

Sweet Treasures by John Holyfield

1. Read, literature by African American Women:

Ar'n't I a Woman? by Sojourner Truth

A Narrative of Sojourner Truth

Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality by Maria Stewart

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriett Jacobs

Thirty Years A Slave and Four in the White House by Elizabeth Keckley

Our Nig by Harriett Wilson

Famous Women of the Negro Race by Pauline Hopkins

A Red Record by Ida B Wells-Barnett

Before the Feast of Shushan by Anne Spencer

Sweat by Zora Neale Hurston

Mules & Men by Zora Neale Hurston

Hoodoo in America by Zora Neale Hurston

To a Dark Girl by Gwndolyn Bennett

Saturday's Child by Countee Cullen

The Living is Easy by Dorothy West

The Mother by Gwendolyn Brooks

A Raisin in the Sun Lorraine Hansberry

A Blue Book from the Blue Black Magical Women by Sonia Sanchez

The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara

From A Logical Point of View by Nikki Giovanni

I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Women by Alice Walker

Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid

The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor

Teaching Critical Thinking by Bell Hooks

Aint I a Women by Bell Hooks

2. Plan Family Reunions or Family Brunches (Form Committees in the Family to organize the event & use family, local, & Black businesses to furnish the lodging, event space, decorations, food, and book signing.)

3. Draw Family Trees & create Photo Albums

4. Tour African American Museums and African American Historical Sites (This list does not include a complete list of Museums & Sites. For example, my favorite museum is the National Museum of Black American Music in Nashville Tennessee. Each State has specific African American Heritage Sites, for example, Florida, Fort Moses.

5. Plant Flowers & Tokens at the Cemetery to celebrate your Family Ancestors, who've "crossed over the river." Send your love, pray for their support, and make sure your children know where their loved ones are buried.

6. Attend Black History Festivals & Celebrations

7. Attend African Drum & Dance Class; or Salsa Classes which help encourage the feminine spirit.

8. Support Black American Businesses: Especially Black Female Owned. Make a real effort to spend money within our community, beginning with businesses owned by your own family & friends.

9. Read a novel by an African or African American Author. The AMP List of Approved Short Stories & Novels will be updated continuously.

10. Enjoy African American Films. Films with African American Female leads, issues, and production. List will be updated.

The American Mastodon Publication is proud to celebrate Women's History Month 2023 and to challenge African Americans to set their own narrative, organize family functions, and to educate themselves on the long experience of Africans women in the United States.

Written by Cowan Amaye-Obu

Sources:

Black Art Depot