In concluding her speech at the Democratic National Convention, Senator Clinton recited the mantra coined by Harriet Tubman while leading slaves to freedom: "Keep going!" No matter what KEEP GOING! Whether Hillary's concluding words were a "play to the audience" or "from her heart" (as I do believe), she reminded us all of not only how far we as a people have come but also of the struggles, the triumphs, and often untold stories of African-American women who weaved the very fabric of this Nation.
Yet, when Governor Palin spoke yesterday, lauding over the accomplishments of Senator Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro in the political arena, she either forgot to or saw no need to include the late Honorable Shirley Chisholm among her political heroines. She either forgot to or saw no need to mention Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice - a Republican, the most powerful and influential woman in the world while paying tribute to women helping to crack the glass ceiling.
The Republicans continue to do nothing to extend a welcome to me, an African-American voter, in an effort to be inclusive. Their idea of outreach and inclusiveness is a billboard espousing that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. But I ask, does not the accomplishments of African American women matter? I ask, as the namesake of this blog asked in 1851: "Ain't I a Woman?.
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Sojourner Truth, Delivered To The Women's Convention In Akron, Ohio - December, 1851
Speak the Truth!
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old SjP ain't got nothing more to say.
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