The Radical Act of "Writing Women into History"

Women's History Month presents an opportunity to us all to change a historical narrative that places women at the margins of society, and by doing so, change the world.

As the great feminist historian Gerda Lerner once wrote, "What we do about history matters. The often repeated saying that those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them has a lot of truth in it. But what are 'the lessons of history'? The very attempt at definition furnishes ground for new conflicts. History is not a recipe book; past events are never replicated in the present in quite the same way. Historical events are infinitely variable and their interpretations are a constantly shifting process. There are no certainties to be found in the past." History cannot provide us with all the answers, but it can shape our understanding of both our past and present.

Women's History Month was created thanks to the activism and lobbying of the National Women's History Project (NWHP) and feminists around the country. In 1980, the year NWHP was formed, women made up just 3% of the content in history textbooks, and many children (and adults) assumed the absence of women in history meant that women just didn't do anything. Howard Zinn, the recently deceased historian and activist, wrote in A People's History of the United States that, "It is possible, reading standard histories, to forget half the population of the country. The explorers were men, the landholders and merchants men, the political leaders men, the military figures men. The very invisibility of women, the overlooking of women, is a sign of their submerged status."

Every year Women's History Month has an official theme, and the theme this year is "Writing Women Back into History," which could not be more appropriate. Women's History Month is not about fun facts or random lists of female trailblazers (though I enjoy learning about things like that). It is about changing the way Americans view their society and reshaping our historical narrative. As a kid I remember learning about Betsy Ross, Clara Barton, and Molly Pitcher, held up almost as exceptions to the rule, the women who actually did something. If we want to truly recognize the contributions of women, we need to totally subvert the way we study history. We need to consider not just the history of the rulers and military heroes, but that of the mothers, wives, laborers, slaves, rebels, and ordinary people whose lives were average but real. There is so much to learn from social history. That is not to say we should stop seeking out the stories of extraordinary women (my life has been made so much richer by learning about women like Ella Baker, Emma Goldman, Dolores Huerta, Eleanor Roosevelt, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Fannie Lou Hamer), but that to truly be radical feminist historians, we need to discover the stories of the forgotten and pushed aside.

Women's history is the people's history--learn it, share it, and use as a tool to change the world.

This article was featured in our March 2010 monthly Choices eZine. Sign up for our alerts to stay up-to-date with the latest feminist news and to receive the monthly eZine.

Never Request Permission to Start a Revolution: 50 Years Since Greensboro

A core principle of organizing that is often repeated here at FMF is that you only need five people to start a movement. 50 years ago today, four young men in Greensboro, NC proved that you don't even need that many.

On February 1, 1960, four students from North Carolina A&T, a historically black college in Greensboro, sat at a whites-only Woolworth's lunch counter. They were refused service but stayed seated, nervous but resolute. The four young men stayed until the store closed that day and returned to campus, where they recruited more students to join their protest. The next day, twenty five students sat at Woolworth's. By February 4th, 300 students were gathering, and a group returned everyday for weeks after.

The protests were considered radical. Franklin McCain, one of the four original student protesters, recalled to CNN, "We had talked to several students about this fractured and unequal democracy and what we wanted to do about it and, quite honestly, most people thought we were crazy." But their goal was just, and those doubts could not stand in their way. As he says, "Never request permission to start a revolution."

As news of the sit-ins got out, they spread to other states, with protesters sitting at lunch counters across the South. The protesters were peaceful, even in the face of jeering crowds hurling insults, food, or worse. Store managers attempted to close their stores for the day, only to have the protesters return again and again.

Joseph McNeill, one of the Greensboro Four, remembers, "For the most part, we were too angry to be too fearful. The heckling and all those things were a concern, but I think it made us stronger for the process. The fact that you could get people to go back into harm's way day after day and take physical abuse and verbal abuse is a testament to the fact that we were responding on solid principles and morals."

The sit-in movement injected fresh energy into the civil rights movement, and led directly to the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in May 1960. SNCC's direct action approach when it came to integration and voter registration would define the movement in the early 60s.

As Ella Baker, a veteran civil rights organizer and adviser to SNCC, wrote in her landmark essay Bigger than a Hamburger, "Whatever may be the difference in approach to their goal, the Negro and white students, North and South, are seeking to rid America of the scourge of racial segregation and discrimination — not only at lunch counters, but in every aspect of life. ... By and large, this feeling that they have a destined date with freedom, was not limited to a drive for personal freedom, or even freedom for the Negro in the South. Repeatedly it was emphasized that the movement was concerned with the moral implications of racial discrimination for the 'whole world' and the 'Human Race.'"

Today, we honor the legacy of Ezell A. Blair Jr., David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain, and remember that even the smallest acts--sitting at a lunch counter, refusing to move to the back of the bus, registering to vote, challenging and questioning the status quo--can be revolutionary.

This article was featured in our February 2010 monthly Choices eZine. Sign up for our alerts to stay up-to-date with the latest feminist news and to receive the monthly eZine.

Keep hope alive. Don't give into hate.

After yesterday's tragedy and a week and a half of grieving for Dr. Tiller, I have been feeling a bit blue. Sometimes it seems like there is so much hatred in the world, and there is so little we can do.

But we can never give up, and never let hatred and anger overtake us. We are activists, and we must work to make this world a better place. In the words of my heroine, civil rights leader Ella Baker:

"You have to go back and reach out to your neighbors who don't speak to you, and you have to reach out to your friends who think they are making it good, and get them to understand that they, as well as you and I, cannot be free in America or anywhere else where there is capitalism and imperialism, until we can get people to recognize that they themselves have to make the struggle and have to fight for freedom everyday in the year, every year, until they win it."