Women's History Month: We've Come A Long Way Baby

As we continue to honor extraordinary women during Women’s History Month I’d like to share a modified timeline of how far my sistas’ have come in the last two centuries.

1619 (August 20) 20 men and women from Africa arrived on a slave ship and were sold in the first North American slave auction -- by British and international custom, Africans could be held in servitude for life, though white Christian indentured servants could only be held for a limited term.

1625 Virginia census lists twelve black men and eleven black women; most have no names and do not have the dates of arrival that most white servants in the census have listed -- only one of the blacks has a full listing.

1668 Virginia legislature declared that free black women were to be taxed, but not white women servants or other white women; that "negro women, though permitted to enjoy their freedom" could not have the rights of "the English."

1780 Massachusetts passed a law abolishing slavery and giving African American men (but not women) the right to vote
About 1797 Sojourner Truth (Isabella Van Wagener) born a slave (abolitionist, women's rights proponent, minister, lecturer.

1808 (January 1) importing slaves to the United States became illegal; about 250,000 more Africans were imported as slaves to the United States after slave imports became illegal.

1809

• New York began recognizing marriages of African Americans

• African Female Benevolent Society of Newport, Rhode Island, founded

• Fanny Kemble born (wrote about slavery) Source: About.com


Fast forward TWO HUNDRED years and…

2009 Michelle Obama, a Princeton University and Harvard Law School graduate, a lawyer, a wife, a mother, becomes the First African American First Lady of the United States.

“Where we are met with cynicism and doubt and fear and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of the American people in three simple words: Yes. We. Can.” An except from the acceptance speech by President Barack Obama on my birthday, November 5, 2008.