African American Women as Political Participants

African American Women as Political Participants

African American women are challenged by the intersections of race and gender when seeking to participate in the American political process. Throughout the history of the United States of America race and gender have been political issues since the founding fathers drafted the constitution crafting the document in patriarchal terms and defining African Americans as three fifths of a person. Politics is the process whereby we as citizens interact to shape our society and institutions to operate in ways that allow access to national resources, maintain civil rights, and protect national interests.

African American women have engaged individually and collectively in political endeavors to advance the rights of all people and especially African Americans. Nonetheless, African American women have remained marginalized in the political process by African American men as well as others in the American political process. Indeed, we are marginalized by other African American women who for whatever reasons are complicit in sustaining patriarchy and silencing women. Political parity for African Americans with Caucasians demands that African American men embrace the cause of eradicating gender discrimination as intensely and intentionally as African American women have embraced and continue to embrace the cause of eradicating racial discrimination.

Historic endeavors of African American women toiling in political coalitions are often untold because few organizations, if any, allow women to serve in leadership. Sadly, this lack of cooperation and support from African American men in the cause of African American women was noted by WEB DuBois early in the twentieth century and now early in the twenty first century his words resonate with honesty yet remain unfulfilled.

In his 1920 essay titled, “The Damnation of Women,” DuBois wrote: “The uplift of women is, next to the problem of the color line and the peace movement, our greatest modern cause. When, now, two of these movements – women and color – combine in one, the combination has great meaning.” (Edney, 2006).

It is imperative for African Americans to gain and maintain political momentum to unite the causes of African American men and women so the community will experience political growth and viability in its entirety any other formation is less than acceptable.

*Edney, H. T. (2006, July 19). Black Women Leaders Still Pushed to the Back of the Bus. Washington , DC, USA.