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This episode is brought to you by. Prime Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice off campus. Elle every year. After the Love Hypothesis, Sterling Point and more slow burns, second chances chemistry you
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A
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B
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C
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A
Welcome to the New Books Network. Hello everyone, and welcome to Academic Life. This is a podcast for your academic journey and beyond. I'm the producer, creator and host, Dr. Christina Gessler, and today I am so pleased to be joined by Ateema o', Mara, who is the author of the How Black Women have Been Essential to American Democracy and and what We Can Learn from Them. Welcome to the show, Ateema.
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B
Thank you for having me, Christina.
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A
I am so glad that you're here and that we're going to dive into this book together. Before we do that, will you please tell listeners about yourself?
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B
Yeah. So I am the founder and chief strategist of Amara Strategy Group, my own political and advocacy consulting firm where I work with progressive political candidates and organizations and projects, you know, that center women, people of color, other folks who've historically been underrepresented in the political process in hopes of, you know, winning campaigns, getting more people elected to public office and passing good policy that benefits everyone and building a more progressive, reflective democracy. And when I'm not doing that, you know, I am somebody who is very much a student of history and pop culture and politics and understanding all of those intersections. I love spending time out in nature and hiking and enjoying good food and good wine and good people and movies and shows and all of that. So I try to be a fully well rounded person because the work I do, especially in these last few years, has had a heavier tone to them than in years past.
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A
The book is called the Instigators. And you tell us in the book why you refer to certain women as instigators and you give us different definitions of the word. Your definition is a really positive one. And for you, being an instigator is really important. Can you define instigator in your own terms for listeners, please?
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B
Yeah. It is somebody who initiates action, starts a movement, and insights change for the better. They see something wrong and they are like, this is nonsense. Anybody gonna fix this? No. Okay, I guess I'm gonna do it. And they are, are driven by that and they're not necessarily interested in engaging in the politics of, you know, power and what are things that are like the right thing to say unless they feel it is useful to the cause and what they are advocating for, what they are trying to do for their loved ones, their community.
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A
In the book, you generously share a lot of personal things. Being an instigator doesn't sound like it was optional for you. You were very impacted by your parents own story. Would you like to share a bit about that?
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B
Yeah, I, you know, it's interesting. I don't think until I was a little bit older, probably late elementary, middle school, that I really understood who my parents were and where they sort of came from and that they were immigrants, that they were people who, you know, my mother came on a scholarship and had every intention of heading back home after she finished college. And my dad had no intention of being here at all. He had a career that he enjoyed in the government, my family's homeland. And, you know, that all kind of came crashing down and so they never were able to go back and they decided to make their home in the U.S. but, you know, hearing my father really had to like, pack his stuff up as member of a targeted ethnic group and leave. And how that shaped him and how he parented me and the things I just sort of learned from osmosis, just observing him and how it affected my mom even because she, even though she came here for a scholarship to the U.S. she also lived for a few years while, you know, the country was in civil war and so saw a lot of things. And so, you know, when you see the potential of the nation fall apart and also navigating Being in a new country, a new land that also has its own history of. While they celebrate us Celebrates democracy and equality, in reality was not always their experience as people not only who were immigrants, but black immigrants at that. It has definitely an impact on how you think about things. And they made me very mindful of sort of the history of the US in that regards and where it was incongruent with. In what sort of is the nice, shiny version of United States. And, you know, there were these bad things that happened, and now, you know, everything's great and everybody gets along, and equality and justice for all. They were good in highlighting, to me, the ugly that was in the history and the people who fought back to change that. And so, yeah, those were the things that really shaped me. I definitely do not think that I would have ended up doing any of this work had I not been raised by the people that I was raised in. A part of the world that I was raised in, in the American south, you know, so I experienced a lot of the, you know, racism, xenophobia, you know, that. And I. And I saw how a system would treat them. And me, I was processing that as I got older, and it was when I realized, okay, I want to fix this, so I want to find a way to make this better for my loved ones, you know, having disabled family members, and I want to be part of how to do that. So, yeah, I think there were other things that I thought I was gonna
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C
be
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B
because I always wanted to find a way to make impact in the world, but. And do something useful. But politics and advocacy arose out of a definite sort of. I felt like a necessity.
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A
There's a part in the book where you're talking with your dad, and he's basically telling you that democracy is a fragile thing. And my takeaway from your inclusion of that anecdote, and because it's a short passage in the book, is that this framing for you that democracy must be stewarded, it must be tended, it must be carefully looked after. The ideas for that were planted early, and we see those seeds throughout this book.
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B
Yeah, yeah, definitely were through, you know, for I had one friend, a colleague in politics. Her father was Serbian, and he had lots of feelings about politics, having been involved as a young student in his homeland, Yugoslavia, and. And. Or what was then Yugoslavia and, you know, in the US he was like, I am done with this. I'm not engaging. I got burned the last time. My father, on the other hand, was very interested and fascinated with US Democracy. He'd come at a Time and saw, you know, Nixon actually be forced out of power as president and be held accountable. And so, you know, he was just so fascinated by that and was really into following the news and keeping himself abreast of things. And, you know, as much as I complained about it, because I was the kid who was creative, I didn't want to spend time watching news. You know, he wanted to make sure that I stayed informed and her. I understood what was happening in the world, could talk about it and that, you know, and the importance of the media in that role. So, yeah, he was. I. I have. You cannot take it for granted. I think that it really imparted that to me because it can be gone in an instant. You know, it can erode over time, and you look up and it's not what you remember. I think a lot of people here in the US Think that, oh, there's going to be this big boom and it's just going to be like a flip over to this. But, you know, when folks say, you know, are we going to have another election? We'll have another election. Russia has elections. Lots of places in the world have elections. But over time, Russia went from the potential of being a really strong democracy in Europe to what it is now. And that was gradual over time. So that's why I say it's. I try to emphasize in the book it's something that has to be nurtured and guarded.
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A
The introduction we go right to February 2019 in what several political commentators or people in the media regarded as the worst Black History Month ever. Can you take us into what was happening there?
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B
Yeah, a lot of this in my introduction. But growing up in Virginia, growing up in a state, some people say Virginia is off the south, but it very much is not only that was actually Richmond was the capital of the Confederacy. And there is much in the silent attitudes that are still very Southern. And those kind of really came to the forefront in 2019 when then Virginia Governor Ralph Northam was a Democrat, other progressive on a lot of things. You know, there was a blackface photo that was found in his medical school yearbook. On his page there was question as to whether it was him, whether it was not. For a while, for a moment he said it was him. Then the next day he said it wasn't. There was a lot of national attention focused on it, but you know, it that and then there was a couple other related blackface photo conversations happening in pop culture and other places. Then also come to find out that the attorney general at the time is in Virginia had had it on his own black face incident, though there were no photos taken, but he admitted to it as well. And you know, everybody's thinking, you know, who. And I remember it very clearly at the time, who were black and involved in politics or just in media or like, supposed to be a month where we're recognizing black accomplishments and, you know, excellence and great things. And here we are, you know, talking about all of the things that are just quite frankly, depressing and actions that are kind of grounded in this history of how people tried to, how people actively degraded us, tried to degrade us. So yes, hence why I think it was an apt term or phrase to describe that. Mon thorst Black History Month ever.
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A
You talk to us about constituencies in the book in several places, and you stress that they are usually portrayed as white. You give us an example of some mailers coming to your mom and it's a party that she would vote for, but there's nothing in the photographs that are representation of her, your neighborhood, the local area. It's just all aim for white constituents with the idea that then non white constituents will follow along. You really push back against that framing. And reading this book, it. You outline all the reasons why this framing doesn't make sense and it, it flabbergasting that the framing is used.
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B
Yeah, I, you know, and I saw those veil pieces, you know, my mom in like a suburban area. And so I found it funny because of the assumption sort of made of who lives in the suburbs when more and more black and brown people are moving into the suburbs because the cities have gotten so prohibitively expensive. So there wasn't sort of, there was this assumption already baked in about who lives in the suburbs. And then, you know, while it focused on a couple of issues that she cared about, it didn't even take the time to really understand, you know, the audience that was receiving it. And oh, this is going to, you know, let's do a little bit more investigation on these voters. Are there Latino voters? Are there black voters? Like, what. What are the issues that are specifically in this area? And it really sort of brought home to me that there is so much more impact that we can have in politics if we really think about what people care about. I think that white voters, especially women voters, are allowed to have a, a full kind of fleshed out set of interests. There can be NASCAR dads, suburban moms, soccer moms. At one point there was hockey moms, security moms. You know, they get to be a variety of people and care about different things. And black people. I wouldn't be surprised if that same election, if you looked at lit that was targeted to an area where there was predominantly black folks, they would have talked about, you know, a couple of things maybe related to if all, because sometimes they wouldn't even get pieces, but they would have a couple of, like, related things that they thought black people in that area cared about rather than actually what were the issues that were important to them because there wasn't interest in getting to know them as they should.
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C
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A
After the introduction is an essay called so about about the 2024 election. And in that essay, you take us into the 2016 election of Hillary Clinton. We go through an emotional rollercoaster with you. While you're there and the experience, can you talk to us about that election and the many things it meant to you?
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B
Yeah. For me, in the book, I really tried to highlight, you know, I was somebody who worked a lot in women in politics. Like, I, you know, my very first campaign trainings was, you know, women's political focused campaign training for candidates and campaign managers. You know, I identified, you know, as a feminist. I thought it was ridiculous that you hadn't had a woman president. I understood why, but I was like, okay, it's time. Here we have somebody who is qualified, has done the work, has the record. And, you know, I related to, because I was sort of diligent in accomplishing and getting things done in, in my community and the political party. And I just sort of looked up to her as an example of what women in service, you know, government can do. And so, you know, to see that sort of all crashing down and not even to like, you know, I, I still would have had some feelings for sure if she'd lost to somebody like a Margaret Rubio or Mitt Romney. But. But to really lose to somebody who was not interested in public service was not somebody who was, you know, very Charitable in public service and donations, without thinking about how it benefited him. Somebody who was very much about marketing and him and who he was and. And looked down on it, even that sort of public service, unless it was, you know, him around, you know, politicians that could make, you know, him look good and powerful. So to lose to literally the antithesis of all that that I had been taught that, you know, you put in the good work, you know, in government, you know, you. You try and get things done. You really sort of define who you are as the type of leader you're going to be. And then to see her lose as somebody who hadn't bothered to put in any of that time was like, whoa. That was. That was a way to really hit the nail on the head that, you know, yeah, sometimes you can be a woman candidate, it ain't gonna matter. You know what. And you could have done all the work, could have been, you know, the most qualified in the room, and sometimes it's still not gonna matter. It's not you. It sometimes really is them. So, you know, that was one of the things, I think, that really hit hard with that election and how folks voted for him and how they acted about how casting their vote for him had nothing to do with sexism or, for that matter, the larger sort of, you know, tinge around white supremacy. Folks say, oh, it's economic anxiety. And I'm like, okay, but that made you very comfortable voting for someone who says a lot of these things. And so I also felt like it was also not only a rejection of me as, like, a woman political leader, but also very much as a black woman daughter of immigrants. Like, it's a portion of this country that rejected all things that looked like me, which. And that's so about the 2024 election, going into talking about Kamala Harris, that all resurfaced tenfold because she was even more somebody that I could relate to than even Hillary Clinton.
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A
Part one of the book is called Nobody's Free Until Everybody's Free, which is pulled from Fannie Lou Hammer. And there's a generous Fannie Lou Hammer block quote. Chapter one is called Instigating Pathways to Freedom.
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And.
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A
And in this chapter, you take us into when you were a student at UVA, it's around 2004, and there's an organization going on for something called March for Women's Lives. It would ultimately have about a million people show up for it, but at the point where you came in, it was basically you and a lot of white women organizers.
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B
Yeah, very much so. It was initially the March for Freedom Choice because I got involved early on, you know, just as somebody who had been involved in my local campus. I think it was National Organization for Women chapter. And I remember, I wonder if I still have some of it around somewhere in like, you know, like files or something. But this March for Freedom of Choice materials, that's what it was called. And, you know, I believed in abortion rights. I wanted to be active in organizing for the march. But, you know, when I came into the room, I think there was like, one. You know, each state had, like, organizing tables, and those organizing tables were made up of representatives from the national organizations that were leading this march. So there was like, center for Repro. Maybe I sent it for Repro Rights. But it was definitely like now Feminist Majority, you know, Planned Parenthood, Narol. And so they were there, and then there was a couple other organizations. So there was like, maybe like one black woman in the room from one of those groups, but she was older, much older. So I came in and I was like, wow, okay. It was already not very diverse. And then I was like the youngest person in the room by like, definitely a generation or two. Like, if people could do my parents and in some cases my grandparents when I came in, like, eager to just sort of be involved and how could I. I help. So, yeah, so that experience really was my introduction into sort of the divisions and the lines in the women's rights movement that had been long there on race, on LGBTQ rights, on disability, a number of things that were outside of the straight, cisgendered, white woman, upper middle class, maybe middle class version.
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A
And when you pointed that out to them, they basically put it on you to go and meet other people and invite more people to come. And you talk about how the white women organizers, the ones in leadership, they were paid, and here you were going out as a volunteer and you were spreading the message and recruiting people. And it also ended up as more people came to the movement from more backgrounds with more representation. As you mentioned a moment ago, the name for. For it changed that. It changed from what they were going to use to March for Women's Lives.
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B
Yes. So a couple things happened here. So I was like, looking around the room and I'm like, okay, have we talked to any of, like, the Young Dems? Young, you know, at campus, like, sort of organizations, Like, I knew, like, okay with now or like Feminist Majority, they had campus organizations. And so I think they were doing some recruiting. But I'm like, I might talk to the Young Dems, like, Seems like we could build a coalition here with young people on college campuses who are not involved in feminist specific political work, but align is per choice. And so they were like, yes, that sounds great. Why don't you do it? I'm like, oh, okay, great. I can go do that. And so did that very much as a volunteer. At the same time, all of this was happening because it was in the early months, there was a lot of kerfuffle with black and brown women leaders. I know you had AD Ross on your podcast a while ago talking about reproductive justice, and she was leading Sister Song at that point. And so they all kind of came together and were like, hey, yo, like, march for Freedom Choice. Like, this doesn't. This doesn't rhyme with sort of our experience. Like, you have the option of choice. Some of us don't even have that on the table, given the way that the system has been set up. And, you know, we're trying to fight to have the access to that choice, you know, because we don't have access to health care, we don't have access to abortion care, we don't have access to, you know, Hyde Amendment makes it impossible, like, when we're, you know, banning those of us who are on federal insurance to have access to abortion, you know, access to clinics is so hard, like, because we're living in rural areas, we face discrimination and healthcare, like, all of these things. And so they're like this, like, if you want us at the table, like, this name is going to have to be reflective of the. The. Of the full scope of the. Of the woman's experience and not just this narrow prism that is for a white woman of means. Right. And so, you know, the name was changed, the table expanded. Those who are leaders at the table, I. And all of this. So getting those new materials and going around organizing as a volunteer, you know, my time off hours from work that point, I was working in state government. I was organizing for this. And, you know, I did as a volunteer. And a lot of folks who are on the ground organizing for this marches did as a volunteer. I was in touch with paid organizers mostly who were white from these organizations. When the women of color organizations came on board, you know, I was able to get in touch with a couple of the organizers from those organizations who, you know, were paid thankfully to organize Latinas and Asian American women and other black women to attend the march. And even in that, when I think about that, and I had organized that event that I refer to in the book, an organizing event for young people in my region of the state, an in person one, you know, there was even some, some friction I remember because, you know, the Latino organizer was, you know, correcting a couple of things. Well, okay, you can't say that specifically. This is how you'd want to say it. And folks were like, we're younger. White women were chafing at that and being like, well, why this and why you know that? And so even though we were like the younger group, you know, there was still, I noticed those, those fault lines in the women's rights organizing spaces.
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A
The book, as we've mentioned earlier, really lays bare how the political movements have centered the white women by default. And on page 36, you talk about how this creates divisions and you say the origins of these divisions are embedded in the framework of our nation's founding. From designating white women as second class non voting citizens, to denying Native Americans citizenship entirely, to codifying black people as three fifths of a person for the benefit of state representation and taxation during slavery. You also talk about in the book that there are certain times in history that, that are inflection points. And you talk about how in these inflection points it is black women, particularly this overlooked demographic of younger black women, the instigators who have always existed at major inflection points throughout U.S. history, carried forth the tradition of fighting for freedom, equity and justice for themselves, and then built the democracy in the United States of America that so many folks enjoyed in the latter half of the 20th century. You introduce us to a number of Instagram throughout the book. We won't have time to get to them all. But in chapter one in we are bound up together in one great bundle of humanity. That's a quote from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. We are introduced to her. Can you tell us about her and why she's one of your instigators?
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B
Yeah, I came across her. I don't know why it was. I think it wasn't just research for this book. But you know, I've always heard of the suffragist Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. But I also knew like these were women who, you know, when they got word in the fight for, you know, sort of suffrage right after the Civil War, you know, instantly reverted to sort of anti blackness and racism because they just didn't like the thought that black men or any person of color would get the vote ahead of them. And, you know, not even sort of taking into account, you know, women of color were, you know, siding with black men, men of color in this particular Suffrage fight. And so I always found, you know, the love for Katie Stanton and Susan B. Anthony sort of an uncomfortable thing. Thing for me, because I'm like, you wouldn't have been an advocate for me, frankly, like, when it was convenient, through people who look like me. Under the bus for your own, you know, power and opportunity. And so, you know, I had learned, I knew of certainly Sojourner Truth. She's sort of, I think, the token representation of black women suffrage. She's awesome in her own right, but. And then I learned about Mary Church Terrell. And it was upon doing some additional digging and reading and thinking and toying around just the idea of this book that, you know, I came across Frances Allen Watkins Harper. And I was just so sort of amazed at how in the fight for universal suffrage, which was an opportunity that happened after the Civil War, as the country was going into the Reconstruction period, that we don't know more about her, but she's the one who really was like, yo, white ladies. You know, standing up in the room, she's like, we all like, you can't be moving ahead and talking about rights and all the things and leaving your black women behind, your black girlfriends behind. Like, you, like, you can't do that. Like, we either all getting free or none of us are getting free is essentially what she said. She was like a century ahead of. Of Van Lou Hamer and saying that in her speech. And this was out of like, women's equality sort of convention. And she stood up in this room and delivered this powerful speech, and she's just like, absolutely not. And it was because of her that, you know, the. They were like, okay, let's form this American Equal Rights association, which was a universal suffrage effort. You know, black men, black women, white men, white women or white women at least, but allied white men who were engaged in this larger cause together. And so I was just fascinated by her, how she was definitely when she was actually came into movement work and suffrage work, being an abolitionist. She had grown up herself in a family that was. She was freeborn, so she never experienced being enslaved, but she certainly experienced the indignities of what it meant to be a black person in the United States, a black woman in the United States traveling for her speeches, though she was requested on the circuit. She was quite popular as a speaker. She was a successful poet. She published books. She was a great academic and mind rather scholar, as it were. And so, you know, I was just fascinated by this fully well rounded, you know, kind of brilliant woman. I. I will say I wondered Why I hadn't learned about her sooner. And I. I do think maybe because Francis didn't fit very neatly into what people wanted to think. And I say, like, you know, society, white led society, thought, wanted to think of black women of the time. Even in the representation of Sojourner Truth, you know, there's a speech AI a woman and, you know, the way it's written, it sounds very much of a Southern colloquial, not literate, enslaved person, the way it's written and the way it sounds and the way it's been orated. But in truth, Sojourner Truth, pun intended, was, you know, somebody who was quite eloquent, spoke with a Dutch accent, actually, because of where she lived in New York, was enslaved by, I believe was a Dutch family. So she had that kind of accent from that part, living in that part of New York and that world. And so I think because Francis was sort of the antithesis of the enslaved woman, she was fully, you know, grew up free, was published and fetted and a requested speaker on the circuit, that she is not looked at as much in history as somebody who kind of fit the narrative a bit more, even though they contorted truth story and her. Her presentation to kind of fit a certain type of narrative of what enslaved black woman should be on page 40.
- [38:55]
A
When you're talking about Watkins Harper, you talk about how her work is just one of the critical inflection points throughout US History where instigators have demonstrated the vision, strategic know how and moral authority to push our nation forward to a truly inclusive multiracial democracy. In the earlier sections of the book where you're talking about Kamala Harris's bid for the presidency and her campaign, you also take us into how she had vision and strategic know how and how she wasn't listened to and she wasn't allowed to fully bring it to her platform because of the idea of censoring what white, white voters were concerned about and then hypothetical really, of what they were concerned about. As we go on, we meet more instigators. In chapter two, we live for the we instigating in the shadows. We get a story of younger you. You were in high school and you wanted to get into the honors English class. And for a moment, we see your mom is an instigator. Can you take us into that story?
- [40:04]
B
Yeah. There's mom is such an interesting person. Most people, like, see her and she's like, friendly and sweet and short, and people sort of underestimate her, especially when they hear her accent. She Grew up the eldest of seven in 1950s, 1960s East Africa. And you know, she thought very early on that she knew she wanted something more than just being a farmer's wife, which had been the fate of all the women sort of before her, especially getting married early. And she really pushed for education and schooling that brought her, you know, thankfully my grandfather actually supported her in that. And that's how she was able to come to the U.S. but, you know, later on in her career when she, you know, had us and was raising us, you know, she found, you know, she had to transfer some of that energy into really being advocates for me and my brother and, you know, making sure that we were being treated well at school. Fairly, really, not even well, just fairly dispelling, you know, things that were said at school that were racist or problematic, you know, calling teachers out for in this story that I mention in the book, trying to track me into and keep me kind of held back when I was demonstrating the potential to do quite well in inquisitor's literature and giving me the opportunities to do so. And she felt like she had to, you know, step in several times just to, just to advocate for her family, her children. And it was, it was interesting because usually like, my dad was the one, you know, since he was, you know, a teacher, he would, you know, kind of handle and deal with the school. But I knew when she got involved, it was because she was just really infuriated. And so I, I focus a little bit on this concept of there are, you know, there are some of us who kind of come into our activism, advocacy in the community early and, and pretty young. But if we don't, it sometimes happens later and it coincides very much with motherhood because now we have, you know, black women have these children they're raising, or maybe they are caregivers for family members that, you know, they are helping with and they become active and instigators around the lives of their loved ones out of necessity.
- [43:17]
A
In the book, you say not highlighting the contributions of black women in social movements for equality, justice and building a multiracial democracy does our nation a disservice on at least two fronts. First, it denies us knowledge of the experience of black women who are next to indigenous women, the most intentionally marginalized group of women in the United States. Understanding these experiences will provide the context we need to improve our politics, public policy, workplaces, and overall society in a multiracial democracy. Second, it prevents us from learning how authoritarianism and anti democracy efforts have been beaten in the US before and how to build an inclusive democracy movement from the very people who have led the charge fearlessly in the United States at literal risk to their livelihood and lives. The book goes on to introduce us to more women. We're coming close to the end of our time together, but I want to ask you at least two about two of them, since we just talked about how you are almost denied your right to pursue your passion from writing in the appropriate writing class for you, in English class for you. One is Ida B. Wells and another is Marianne Shad Carey. Can you talk to us about free press and their work?
- [44:27]
B
Yeah. So as somebody who at one point, like, I actually thought I was going to be a journalist, I had done. I had worked for my school paper, which is a daily school paper, and I was also had interned at my local town paper in Virginia. And, you know, I was, I was interested in that. And then I, you know, because I'd have this sort of, you know, tradition with my father watching the news and media and, you know, I have. I always sort of also followed like, you know, I remember BET sort of in its early days, black media reading black newspapers, looking at Jet Ebony, Essence, and these things were. These outlets in its heyday were really important in informing the black community about different policy, about different issues, about pop culture, things that we would not see in mainstream media, you know, things that were. That we should be concerned about, that we should know about. And Ida B. Wells and Marianne Shad Kerry followed in that tradition. And, you know, I make the tie that they are sort of natural descendants of those who, you know, we talk about in the revolutionary era period, you know, white men like Benjamin Franklin, like Samuel Adams, who used media to inform at that point, the colonies about the abuses from the crown, the corruption from the crown, the policies, the over taxation, you know, and use it as sort of a mobilizing force which then informing their base of what was happening, informing their readers what was happening. Those readers then were informed and, you know, agitated enough by these injustices to then push and give energy to the Continental Congress to then be like, yo, we're, we're done. Like, yo, King George iii, go kick rocks. Right? And so I say that Ida B. Wells and Marianne Chad Carey are two examples of women who took those same principles of how, you know, the media exposing corruption and abuse and in this case, IDB Wells, how lynching was used, and terrorism from the Klan and other white people against black people in the American south to keep them, quote unquote, in place from actually, you know, moving up in life, getting equality, getting financial power, getting, you know, having civil rights in general, you know, writing several pamphlets, even co founding a newspaper to that effect. You know, her life was in danger. Her newspaper was destroyed. Like the offices were ransacked. One of her co founders was, I think, beaten. And she had. Was luckily out of town when all this happened. But she got word about it and it was like, I'm staying out of. Not going back to Memphis, where she was from, but continued that work as a freelance reporter raising money to cover and highlight these abuse, you know, these cases in the south where black people were being unjustly, you know, tried, prosecuted simply because of Jim Crow in the South. And Marianne Jud Kerry was somebody unlike Ida B. Wells, who was born into slavery. She was another freeborn woman. And she moved to Canada because she was like, you know, at some point, you know, it was during the period of enslavement she was over. It was like, I'm gonna go to Canada where I can live free. Because it was after the Fugitive Slave act. And at that point, you know, if somebody was captured, this law basically was like, if you were captured and you were black, you would be returned to your quote, unquote owner. And they weren't really asking too many questions about the black people that they were, you know, capturing if they had been. They were never owned to begin with because they were born, you know, not into slavery. And so, you know, she lived in Canada, but she wanted to. She moved from. With her, moved herself in the US to Canada and she started a newspaper there. And that was. She was the. Became the first black woman in North America to start a newspaper in her own right. And also the first, I believe, woman publisher in Canada, if I'm correct, because she's like a many first in this regards. And she used that paper to educate people about the Fugitive Slave act, about finding ways raising money and awareness around those who are trying to get to Canada to freedom, lobbying against the Fugitive Slave act, also using it to talk about suffrage and equality and all of that, and educate our public who are white supporters and black people about the injustices and the corruption abuses of the U.S. government. And so they were very much in this tradition. And so I highlighted them in this chapter because media, there are many people today who follow in that tradition. You know, Joy Reid, I talked to Daniel Moody, who's a journalist, and I'm really focused on the idea that, you know, democracy is also not just like through voting, not just through organizing, but it's through the media, right that we can hold power to account. And there are many black women who have lost, and I highlight that in the chapter, who have lost their platform in sort of mainstream media to be able to do that. And the importance, and really try to highlight the importance of not only having a diverse media, but people who will use media to hold power to account. Because as Ben Franklin said, when it's not available, then we are no longer able to be. We start falling away from democracy.
- [51:08]
A
The book has nine chapters. It's divided into three parts. Part two is called and Still I Rise, which is a quote from Maya Angelou. Part three is called Bring a Folding Chair, which is a quote from Shirley Chisholm, which is, if they don't give you a seat at the table, bring in a folding chair. We're starting to run out of time. So my final question is, what do you hope this episode sparks for listeners?
- [51:33]
B
You know, when I wrote this book, you know, while we talk a little bit about our historical figures, I also talk a lot about modern day instigators, women who followed in that tradition. So, you know, if I talk about Ida B. Wells and Marianne Shot Kerry, I talk about, you know, black women of today who are doing stuff in media. If I talk about organizing, you know, I talk about women and non binary folk of today who are doing, who are black, who are doing and carrying on in the tradition of that work. And I really want folks, I want to highlight for folks that, you know, any social movement you can think of, you know, regardless of what it is, you are going to find, you know, an instigator at the vanguard, a black woman at the vanguard, usually probably pretty young. And you know, there's been a lot of talk about listen to black women. And it's a great slogan, but I also think it's, it's part of an imperative because, you know, these are women who really had no choice but to fight for really making sure that America lived up to the principles that were laid out in the Declaration of Independence and the, you know, Constitution. And, you know, and that's why I have that last part of the book, you know, in the subtitle and what we can learn from them. Because even if you're not that black woman today who's like looking for inspiration and stories in the past, I want folks who are not black to read this and find stories and examples of inspiration of what they can do in their community and how to do it in a way that really builds toward an inclusive democracy. That's why I try to tell These stories from the past to the present show that we've been here before. A certain community has experienced the very worst of what America has done, and they have been hopeful in pushing back to build a better world. And how can we do that now in these times?
- [53:53]
A
Thank you so much for being here today and sharing the instigators, how black women have been essential to American democracy and what we can learn from them. You've been listening to the academic life. Please join us again.