Ricardo A Garza - African American Women - Pioneers of the Pro-Feminist movement lyrics

Between the Colonial Era leading up to the Reconstruction Period after the Civil War, African American women influenced the rise of the Pro-Feminist movement through literary works and speeches designed to empower and propagate for the rights of women and people of color. 1773 Phillis Wheatley the first African American woman to publish a book of poems. Excerpt from Phillis Wheatley "On Being brought from Africa to America" (1773) "Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too" 1828 First black woman to win child custody against a white slave owner. Excerpt from Sojourner Truth "Aint I a woman" (1851) " I am a woman's rights. I have as much as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that?" 1853 Mary Ann Shadd Cary becomes first black woman editor and publisher in north America Excerpt from Frederick Douglas article on Mary Ann Shadd in "North Star" (1856) "This lady with very little a**istance from others has sustained The Provincial Freeman for more than two years...We are bound to bear testimony to the unceasing industry, the unconquerable zeal, and commendable ability, which she has shown." 1861 Civil war breaks out between Northern and South states Excerpt from Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation "That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including th 1868 Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley publishes autobiography, Behind the Scenes: Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House Excerpt from Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House "American colonies, an evil was perpetuated, slavery was more firmly established; and since the evil had been planted, it must pa** through certain stages before it could be eradicated." 1861 Harriet Jacobs publishes the first autobiography by a former female slave. Excerpt from the preface of Harriet Jacobs “Incidents in the life of a slave girl” (1861) “I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of women at the South, still in bondage, suffering what I suffered, and most of them far worse.” 1863 Sojourner Truth helps recruit black troops for the Union Army. Excerpt from Sojourner Truth "The Valiant Soldiers" (1863) "Look there above the center, where the flag is waving bright; We are going out of slavery, we are bound for freedom's light; We mean to show Jeff Davis how the Africans can fight, As we go marching on" 1880 Mary Ann Shadd Cary creates the Colored Women's Progressive Franchise Association Excerpt from Mission statement of the Colored Women's Progressive Franchise Association (1880) "Seek to obtain the ballot to look alive after the welfare of both boys and girls in the training of the youth...and to extend the number of occupations for women."