Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
Commemorating Women’s History Month is embedded in my DNA because the roots of my advocacy were planted growing up in Virginia in my Black Southern family. We shared stories of resistance to Jim Crow and a plethora of laws and social constructs that were designed to harm or kill us as a matter of routine subjugation. In a state that, until 2000, celebrated Lee-Jackson-King Day, egregiously combining a day for Martin Luther King Jr., Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson as if these three men held even a morsel of similar ideals and visions of freedom and civil rights for all.
As a college student, my advocacy further crystallized when I was introduced to our collective U.S. history that was omitted from my public school books. Learning about our persistence, protest and struggles for justice — particularly at the intersection of race, ethnicity, and gender — fueled my professional mission. I was determined to honor and follow in the footsteps of the many women of color for whom freedom was always the dream, such as Gloria Anzaldùa, Fannie Lou Hamer and the women of the Combahee River Collective.
Their dreams of freedom for me and others paved the way to a career that would advance intergenerational work. I am buoyed by the fact that my work will hopefully one day inspire another sisterhood of women who I trust will surpass me. The power of our collective contributions to securing freedom has not always been welcome in society, but nevertheless, we forge ahead because we understand we are never alone in our quest.
The opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion remains ever-present and just as insidious as it was more than 30 years ago in my home state. We need to look no further than the organized campaign to force Dr. Claudine Gay’s resignation at Harvard or the chronic underpaying of…
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