Hello, my name is Sandra, and I am a sociology major. And I have been working with Professor Siegfried on my independent study and I would like to share that with you now, we're defining power, the legacy of struggle in survival of black women and girls to change social systems. Today, black women and girls continue to be haunted by the power structures of the past. These power structures lead them, bond are vulnerable and excluded. Living at the intersection of race, class, and gender. Despite the significant barriers they have resisted, bought against and continue to transform systems of knowledge and education. The experiences of black women and girls have been systematically excluded, dehumanized, and segregated within social institutions. Despite the attempted erasure of these experiences from public knowledge, black women and girls have copped a profound, profound, powerful, intellectual space for authors, poets, artists, scholars, activists, sociologists and more. Using the work of sociologist Patricia Hill Collins on race, class and gender, I will examine how the power structures of the United States continue to oppress black women and girls and suppress them knowledge, production, education, and intellectual thought. Chronicling the pioneering in contemporary women, women who have resisted, challenged, and recognize how their social location as a woman, a black woman, and in the subordinate class, has kept them at the mercy of the hierarchy, hierarchical patriarchal ruling class of white men. And without their participation, their social location would remain stagnant. And the social injustices they face would continue to protect their ongoing oppression. Racist ideologies are born with the onset of slavery. Yes, a speculate is, observe the changing height and size of children. So two, they assessed women of childbearing age on the possibility of their wounds. Turner, 2021. The slave system deemed black women and girls as chattel, securing the position of the oppressor and the oppressed or joiner. Truth was born into slavery in 797. She would eventually escaped to her freedom. And 826. Truth was an early American rights activist. Her race dictated her position as a slave. Elevating the position that the white slave holder dehumanized her and reduce tertiary shadow. Her race and gender further exploited her, exploited her labor and the possibility of her, whoops, for the act, the economic gain, gain of the white slave holder. Her race and gender also made her vulnerable to sexual violence at the hand of the white slave holder. Her race and gender dictated her to the subordinate class, denied her protection under the law, access to resources and opportunities, freedom and agency. Truth I no formal education, could not read or write, but gave a cron, concrete analysis that challenged and deconstructed the idealogical view of womanhood and gender roles in the 19th century. With this powerful speech. Look at me, look at my arms. I have plowed and planted and gathered in the barns and no man could had 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 born 13 children and seen most all sold off to slavery. And when I cried out with my mother's grief, none, but Jesus heard me and Ain't I a Woman? Collins, 1990. Truth also foreshadowed the idea and concept of intellectual. Begging the question for centuries to come. Who is intellectual and who are the gatekeepers of that decision? Not all black women intellectuals are educated. Not all black women intellectuals work in academia. Furthermore, not all highly educated black women, especially those who are employed in US colleges or universities, are automatically intellectuals. Collins, 990. Choose contrary contributions, dictate that there must be an expansion in space made for the voices of all black women and girls regardless of their social location. Sojourner, Truth spoke, truth to power. Inequality is embedded into the structures of the United States. George Washington, the most powerful man in America during his presidency, was also the wealthiest and most politically connected slave owner in America. Owens 2021. 12 additional presidents from 789 to 870, seven own slaves. Only 60, not this arrow would be known as a slave autocracy. The slave owning ruling class that ruled the country. Owens, 2021. This slave owning ruling class cement. And socially construct, cemented the socially constructed inequality woven into the fabric of American society. Subsequent legislation in the form of the Fugitive Slave Act secured anti-blackness and white supremacy in America. Thus indicating the ownership of black women and girls as fundamentally more paramount than the pursuit of freedom, freedom by any black woman or girl. The infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857 further escalated racial inequality and white supremacy by denying citizenship to persons of African, african descent, whether free or enslaved. Powell 2021. Chief Justice Taney's decision, they had for more than a century before, been regarded as beings of an inferior order and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations. And so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect. Powell 2021. The Emancipation Proclamation extended freedom to the black women and girls, to black women and girls. The 14th Amendment provided equal protection, due process, and privilege and immunities to citizens and all people. Powell, 2021. The importance of the 14th Amendment cannot be argued. It however, was left wide open for interpretation by those yielding the power white men. The Supreme Court ruling in 1896, Plessy versus Ferguson, upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation in determining that separate was equal. Despite the significant racial inequalities, women, such as Maria W. Stewart and Ida B. Wells laid a solid foundation for future intellectuals, activist and producers of knowledge. Maria W. Stewart, one of the very first black feminist activists and intellectuals, had only fractured pieces of an education. She recognized, objected and challenge the negative stereotypes of black womanhood over time. And made the connection that gender, race, and class were instrumental in the oppression of black women and girls. We have pursued the shadow. They have obtained the substance. We have performed the labor, and they have received the profits. We have planted the fines and they have eaten the fruit of them. Collins 990, Stewart emboldened black women and girls to take action, to take possession of their own lives and create self-definition. It is useless for us any longer to sit with our hands folded. Reproaching the whites for that. We'll never elevate us. Collins, 990. She challenged the construct of gender roles. Possess the spirit of independence, possess the spirit of men, bold and enterprising, fearless and undaunted. Collins, 990. Stewart understood the unique strength of motherhood and their relationships with one another as powerful instruments for political action. Let every female heart become united and let us raise a fund ourselves. And at the end of one year and a half, we might be able to lay the cornerstones. A building of a high school that the higher branches of knowledge might be enjoyed by us. Collins, 990 Ida B. Wells, and exemplary black female producer of knowledge, champions for social justice and racial and gender. Equality was also known as the mother of the 19th century anti lynching movement. She was an investigative journal journalist and co-owner of the Memphis free speech. She was also credited with organizing the first black women's suffrage club, the alphaj, Alpha Suffrage Club. Wells refused to be relegated to the rear of the National American Women's Suffrage Association. Walk on Washington, defying her white sisters by joining them. One of two black women. Ida B. Wells, helped to establish the N double a CP. Attention, expansion and recognition must be paid to the contribution of these women who had advocated, stimulated, and created a path for social and political change for black women and girls. Brown versus the Board of Education 1954, determined that public schools must integrate. Educational institutions, have also fostered this pattern of disenfranchisement. Past practices, shuts, such as denying literacy to slaves and relegating black women to underfunded segregated southern schools worked to ensure that a quality education for black women remained the exception. Rather than the rule columns 1990. This integration was to take place at Little Rock Central High in Alabama. A quality education is what the Little Rock Nine desired. At a well funded school with resources and opportunities, as opposed to the segregated school with less funding and limited resources and opportunities. This ground breaking events. I've integrating Little Rock Central High involved nine children, seven of whom were female, including Melba, the tiller bills. Each day. She attended Little Rock Central High in Alabama. Her education, her protection, and her very life rested in the decision-making process of those holding the power. The President of the United States, the governor, the National Guard, local and state police, all of whom were white. Now that Patil appeals would go on to write, warriors don't cry and to earn her PhD memo, Patil Melba, up until o Beals demonstrated through her endurance and participation in the integration of Little Rock Central High, that warriors do not cry. They endure, galvanized and resist. In my central high school experience, if my central high school experience taught me one lesson, it is that we are not separate. The effort to separate ourselves, whether by race, creed, color, religion, or status, is that's costly to the separator. As to those who would be separated, Melba, potato feels black women like Melba till meals made it possible for other black women to be recognized, heard, to be visible. A people do not throw geniuses away. And if they're thrown away, it is our duty as artist, scholars and witnesses for the future to collect them again for the sake of our children and if necessary. Bone by bone. Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple. Where do we go from here? Black girls are seven times more likely to be suspended. And white girls and black girls are four times more likely to be arrested than white girls. Black girls are less likely to be recommended for AP classes. Then why girls, even with identical Transkei transgress, black women, account for just 2% of the full-time professors at degree-granting institutions across the country. According to research done by Jonathan cuz out in 2005, extreme racial isolation of the past in our school systems in the US is still prevalent today. Schools that were deeply segregated 25 to 30 years ago are still deeply segregated. Schools bearing Dr. King's name are representative of this. In Cleveland, Ohio. A high school named after Dr. King, 97 percent of the student body as Bach, a middle school in Boston, 98% of the students are black. In Los Angeles, 99% of the students are black and Hispanic. Tressie McMillan cotton is a representative of the 2% of the of the professors at a degree granting institution. As an Associate Professor of Sociology at Virginia Commonwealth. I see chairs. This thought. We are people with very well circumscribed to different degrees by histories that shape who we are allowed to become. Trusting. We mail and caught him as an academic scholar, sociologist, and a producer of knowledge. She is self-described. The people she studies. She is holds she holds five jobs and has significant student debt. She thinks for a living. And with that privilege comes the response, great responsibility because, because others like her, black women are systematically filtered out of every level of social status. A process that began with slavery. In the words of Maria W. Stewart, turn your attention to knowledge and improvement. For knowledge is power. All those years ago, Maria W. Stewart knew the importance of knowledge. And it's key to reclaiming power. 0, 0, 0.