Beautiful Black Women
TV ClubHouse: Archives: 2003 February:
Black History Month:
Beautiful Black Women
Nanya | Friday, February 07, 2003 - 05:54 pm     In up state New York, Isabella Van Wagener was born a slave in 1797. She gained her freedom in 1827, after New York abolished slavery. At age 46, she answered her spitual calling and began "traveling up and down the land". She sang, preached, and debated at camp meetings, in churches and on village streets, exhorting her listeners to accept the biblical message of God's goodness and the brotherhood of man. Its about that time that Isabella adopted the name by which history would remember her. She was the woman that we know as Sojourner Truth. I find it inspirational that a black woman could endure all that was her lot in life and still be able to understand that it takes all of us together to make it work...and to know the strenghth of women. "Well children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think 'twixt the Negoes of the South and the women of the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about? 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 best places. 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 can 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 of them sold into slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! AND AIN'T I A WOMAN? Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it--intellect. If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little have measure full? Then that little man in Black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a Woman! Man had nothing to do with Him!! If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again." These were the words of Sojourner Truth in 1851, thirteen years before she began nursing the wounds of Union soldiers in Washington, D.C. hospitals during the civil war. |
Nanya | Sunday, February 09, 2003 - 05:58 pm     At the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Roxbury, Mass., there is a 3X5, black, paper-covered memorandum book kept under lock and key. It chronicles the early years of this institution devoted to the medical and nursing education of women. On page five of this simple little book, the name MARY MAHONEY has been inscribed. It is a simple notation - one that belies the indomitable courage of a 90 pound black woman who became the FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN TO GRADUATE AS A REGISTERED NURSE. Her training, like that of all nurses of her time, included 16 hr days, 7 days a week, devoted to washing and ironing, cleaning and scrubbing. In 1879, out of a class of 40 studendts, only Mary Mahoney - them 34 years old - and two white students graduated. Through her distinguished career, Mary Mahoney recognized the need for nurses to work together to improve the status of Blacks in the profession. She became the inspiration to "The National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses" Mary Elizabeth Mahoney was born a free woman in 1845. Thank you Mary Mahoney for paving my way! |
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