We are excited to announce the start of the 2022 ABWH Awards Season! 2022 Letitia Woods Brown Book Prize for the best book or anthology in African American women’s history The Letitia Woods Brown Prize is awarded annually by ABWH. The competition is open to all books and anthologies concerning African American women’s history published between June 1, 2021, and May 30, 2022, including those written by members and non-members …
Mary McLeod Bethune Statue in the U.S. Capitol is an Important Commemoration of Black Women’s Political Activism in the Federal Government
On October 12, 2021, a six-foot statue of educator and activist, Mary McLeod Bethune was unveiled in Daytona Beach, Florida. In early 2022, the statue will be moved to the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall, a site comprised of statues donated by individual states to honor those notable to that state’s history. Bethune will become the first African American to have a state-commissioned statue in the hall and she will replace …
How the State Deploys “Know-Your-Place” Violence against Black Families in their Homes
Image Credit: Bellew, Frank, Artist. Visit of the Ku-Klux / drawn by Frank Bellew. , 1872. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2001695506/. Ever since police officers in the narcotics unit of the Louisville Metro Police Department killed Breonna Taylor as she slept in her own home, I’ve been thinking about night riders in the nineteenth century, and finding disturbing parallels with SWAT and narcotics units in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Somehow these modern-day police entities are doing …
Michaela Coel’s “I May Destroy You” and a History of Black Women and Sexual Consent
Perhaps unwittingly, Coel’s idea of a “theft of consent” evokes a deep history specifically of Black women’s fraught relationship with notions of sexual consent in Western culture.
Legacies of Black Women Athletes’ Resistance and the Need for More Histories About It
In the WNBA, where Black women are 74% of the players, and in NCAA Division I women’s basketball where Black women are 51% of the players, it is important to center gender in ongoing conversations about race, social justice, and sports.
Everyday Harm: Black Women and a History of Police Violence.
While Mario Cuomo presided over the state during the 1980s and 1990s, NYPD officers killed Eleanor Bumpurs (1984), Sharon Walker (1984), Yvonne Smallwood (1987), and Mary Mitchell (1991). In 2016, during Andrew Cuomo’s second term in office, sixty-year-old Deborah Danner was shot to death in her Bronx apartment.
Breonna Taylor, Police Brutality, and Black Women’s Historic Demands for Justice
Even as Breonna Taylor’s case receives more attention outside of Louisville, largely as a result of national and international responses to the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, can we really expect justice if almost 3 months after her murder none of the accused officers have even been charged?
2020 ABWH Prizes
The Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH) is pleased to announce the 2020 Letitia Woods Brown prizes for the best book, anthology, and article in African American women’s history. The Woods Brown prizes are awarded annually by ABWH. 2020 Letitia Woods Brown Book Prize for the best book or anthology in African American Women’s History The competition is open to all books, anthologies, and articles concerning African American women’s history published between June …
By Remembering Our Sisters, We Challenge Police Violence Against Black Women and Legacies that Eclipse these Injustices.
In the years since Aiyana’s untimely death, the number of black women and girls either killed by police or who have died in police custody has grown to include: Tanisha Anderson, Yvette Smith, Rekia Boyd, Natasha McKenna, Sandra Bland, Kindra Chapman, Kimberlee Randall-King, Joyce Curnell, Ralkina Jones, Raynette Turner, Kayla Moore, Gynnya McMillen, and Korryn Gaines.
ABWH-TV Discusses The Clark Sisters movie Thursday, 5/7 at 3 EST
Our thoughts are with those affected by COVID-19 in the U.S. and around the globe. We pray that this email finds you and your families safe. We would be honored if you would join us for another exciting premiere of ABWH-TV on Thursday, May 7 at 2 CST/3 EST. In Episode 3, we present our panel of experts discussing the Lifetime original movie The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel. …