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Gender Identity Among African Americans

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Submitted By shagon86
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Gender Identity Among African Americans Danny Tarantino
University of Phoenix
The African American Experience
SOC/338
Tara Lake
May 20, 2013

In 1619, when the first African slaves arrived in the New World, their race's hardships in the new continent began. One can say that early American history is as much the story of African Americans as it is of the Whites. Only their story is about slavery and oppression and lives lived under the control of others. Centuries and many generations later, their story is written while the shadow of oppression has never left them. One would most likely see this perspective from the stories written and shared by the Black males. But this experience was shared by the Black women as well and their actions, their perspectives, and choices helped shape what would be a liberating movement in a fight for Civil Rights and equality. In the fight for Civil Rights - they were pushing for reforms on two fronts: Civil Rights for being African-American and equal rights for women. They inhibited two minority platforms - that of women and that of being African-American. They fought for it however and as a result, African American women today enjoy freedoms and opportunities that those before them did not.

One of the key figures in the African American women’s movement was Mary McLeod Bethune. Something of a Matriarch, she possessed a dynamic and even aggressive personality. Not particularly well read, she was a forceful speaker who could grasp and absorb ideas that gave support to her own interests (Holt, 1964). She was a pioneering figure for civil rights and education, working to provide education and opportunities to African-Americans believing that education is the route to progress and empowerment. She was born to former slave parents in 1875 and joined them working in the

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