JOAN MORGAN ON SPREADING THE F-WORD

I came out of the womb a feminist. It is my natural state. Racism made me fully aware that I'd have to demand partnership, parity, and respect from everyone, including males without having to be the same as a male. 

In other words, I expect to have to work for equality without sameness in regards to race and gender both. 

I raised myself up in a feminist mindset because of the failures I saw too close to home and inside my home.

And I became an even stronger feminist, at college, when I realized how women weren't telling their own stories, their own history -- not even within black history.  

But there was a time when I moved away from the word "feminist" because I simply stopped thinking about it in my day to day life. And the f-word was so despised in the black community that I deliberately let the f-word drift away even further when various things came up. I don't think I ever got as far as denying my feminism out loud, as Toni Morrison has. But I was very silent.  

Then Joan Morgan published a little book called "When The Chickenheads Come Home To Roost" and it brought me all the way back to my sisters for good.

JOAN MORGAN SAID:

"When I wrote 'Chickenheads...' The vast majority of my black girlfriends did not identify as feminists. A few worried that anyone would read a book about hip-hop and feminism since, as I wrote back then most Sistas I knew weren't [screwing] with the F-word.

All of them were happy for me but truth be told, many of them didn't read the book until many years later. Some of them still haven't read it.

But I must say that it gives me great joy to watch their daughters identify proudly, unabashedly, unequivocally as Black and Brown Feminists across multiple platforms in social media.

It amazes me to no end that some of them have superstar pop icons that also identify as Black Feminist. This feminist journey was slow and often hard and sometimes lonely but I am humbled and heartened by the company I keep. Y'all might not have been feminists (I think you were, you just didn't know it) but y'all raised some mighty ones. "

#LetsHearItForTheWork

https://www.facebook.com/Joan-Morgan-Writer-72604480788/?fref=nf

MY...OH MY...
HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED OVER THE CENTURIES

ALICIA GARZA  (BLACK LIVES MATTER CREATOR)  

PATRISSE CULLORS, (BLACK LIVES MATTER CREATOR)

OPAL TOMETI (BLACK LIVES MATTER CREATOR)

Aisha Tyler
KIMBERLE CRENSHAW (INTERSECTIONALITY SOCIOLOGIST)

J K Rowling,  (HARRY POTTER)

Maria W Stewart,

Gabrielle Union,

PAULI MURRAY,

Ruth Bader Ginsberg,  (SUPREME COURT JUSTICE)

Diane Nash, (CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER)

ANNA ARNOLD HEDGEMAN,  (CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER, N.O.W. FOUNDING MEMBER)

Zora Neale Hurston 
Septima Clarke (CIVIL RIGHTS TEACHER)
Aja Monet (POET, SAY HER NAME ACTIVIST)

Sonia Sotomayor, (SUPREME COURT JUSTICE)

TYRA BANKS

Salma Hayek,

Alicia Keys

Shonda Rhimes (WRITER/PRODUCER BROWNING HOLLYWOOD ONE ACTOR/ACTRESS/MUSIC ROYALTY AT A TIME 

Kerry Washington,

Viola Davis,

Margaret Cho

Tracee Ellis,

Gina Prince Bythewood (DIRECTOR)

Angela Bassett,

BARBARA SMITH,

ANNA JULIA COOPER,

Ferdinand Barnett

Jada Pinkett-Smith,

IDA B WELLS  (JOURNALIST, FIRST ANTI-LYNCHING RESEARCHING SOCIOLOGIST, NAACP FOUNDING MEMBER)

JOAN MORGAN (“WHEN THE CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST)

bell hooks

MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY

Malaya Yousafzai, 

Beyonce,

Don McPherson, 

DELORES HUERTA,

ANGELA DAVIS,

Daisy Bates (?)

CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE (WRITER)

Coretta Scott-King  (?)

DELORES C TUCKER, 

Ava DuVernay (DIRECTOR - Selma, Queen Sugar)
India Arie (MUSICIAN)

BEVERLY BOND (BLACK GIRLS ROCK CREATOR)
Jessica R Williams (Daily Show Comedian) John Legend (Pop Music, Producer of “Underground”)

Eva Longoria,  (Television Actor)

Maya Angelou,

AUDRE LORDE,

ALICE WALKER,

SONIA SHAH

HILLARY CLINTON,

PATRICIA HILL-COLLINS,

GLORIA STEINHEM,

DOROTHY PITTMAN HUGHES,
GLORIA ANZALDUA

SOJOURNER TRUTH
FREDERICK DOUGLASS

HARRIET TUBMAN