Ava DuVernay at the New York Film Festival premiere of her Netflix documentary “13th.” (Marion Curtis/Netflix)
In her book I’m Every Woman: Remixed Tales of Marriage, Motherhood and Work, Lonnae O’Neal wrote, “It’s not that I think black women have all the answers — only that we have struggled with the questions longer.” These words are as prescient and applicable to our present situation under the Despot-in-Chief as they are to the work-family life (im)balance O’Neal was writing about over a decade ago.
Since our foremothers were forced onto these shores, we’ve struggled with questions about freedom and survival, justice and equity, truth and lies. Long before we took to the streets and corporate boardrooms and courtrooms and classrooms and concert stages, the struggle lived in our bodies and in our children’s bodies, on auction blocks and in cold shanties.
No, we don’t have all the answers. But we’ve been living and loving and creating and fighting and figuring out how to make a way out of no way longer than anybody.
So listen up.
Here are 20 Black women activists, artists, scholars and all-around bad-asses who are showing up and showing out, speaking truth to power.
1. Tressie McMillan Cottom
sociologist, professor, author
In her own words: “I’m Not Your Racial Confessor”
2. Ava Duvernay
filmmaker
In her own words: “McConnell didn’t silence [Sen. Elizabeth Warren]. He amplified her. Giving more power to Mrs. King’s letter on Sessions. And more fire to our fight. #Onward.”
3. Eve Ewing
scholar, writer, educator, artist
In her own words: “‘But if we delete people we don’t agree with, where do we draw the line?’ Um, somewhere around the ‘white supremacist propaganda’ region.”
4. Alicia Garza
co-creator, #BlackLivesMatter
In her own words: “Our cynicism will not build a movement. Collaboration will.”
5. Roxane Gay
Writer
In her own words: “I love reading things that make me feel the same way I feel when listening to Beyoncé — slayed.”
6. Vanessa German
photo credit: Heather Mull
visual and performance artist
In her own words: “Sandra Bland. Sandra. Sandra was my mother’s name. Sandra Bland i remember you with heartbreak & resistance.”
7. Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah
essayist
In her own words: On fearlessness and black art
8. Danai Gurira
actress, playwright
In her own words: “Women! We are at a moment when we prove that we were built for such a time as this. Don’t just march. Run!”
9. Tamara Winfrey Harris
author, social commentator
In her own words: “Some of Us are Brave: The Failure of White Feminism”
10. Sherrilyn Ifill
president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
In her own words: “Democracy alert: the President suggests the judicial branch is illegitimate if it doesn’t agree with him.”
11. Mariame Kaba
organizer, educator, curator, writer
In her own words: “Yes, Trump Is President. We Can’t Compromise in the Fight Against Criminalization.”
12. Mia McKenzie
author, Black Girl Dangerous creator
In her own words: “Real solidarity doesn’t require an audience or a pat on the back.”
13. Janelle Monae
actress, singer
In her own words: “I still can’t believe there were people who really thought it was a great idea not to vote and then a great idea to vote for this bully.”
14. Bree Newsome
filmmaker, musician, speaker, activist
In her own words: “Being students of history will help us not be fools in the present.”
15. Lynn Nottage
playwright
In her own words: “Too many emotions occupying the same crowded space. Sometimes that take the shape of tears, sometimes a clenched fist #resist”
16. Brittany T. Oliver
civil rights activist, educator, consultant, non-profit leader
In her own words: “What’s Next After All the Marches? Organize.”
17. Monica Roberts
blogger, civil rights advocate
In her own words: “POTUS 44 was the best ever on trans issues and inclusion of us in his administration. POTUS 45 is on track to be the worst ever.”
18. Yara Shahidi
actress, activist
In her own words: “As somebody who’s half Iranian, I have family that I want to know can come here and be safe.”
19. Vilissa Thompson
writer, disability rights consultant and advocate
In her own words: “You will not erase the involvement of black disabled women in my movement. Not on my watch.”
20. Crissle West
photo credit: Kid Fury
writer, pop culture commentator
In her own words: “Hard to imagine the state of public education in this country getting shittier but…”
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