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Motivation 2020: Veterans Day Poems & Quotes

11/11/2020

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.” John F. Kennedy

Motivation 2020: Veterans Day Poems & Quotes

Motivation 2020: Veterans Day Poems & Quotes

How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes! Maya Angelou
To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory. President Woodrow Wilson
In order to ensure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans’ organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose. Dwight D. Eisenhower
It’s about how we treat our veterans every single day of the year. It’s about making sure they have the care they need and the benefits that they’ve earned when they come home. It’s about serving all of you as well as you’ve served the United States of America. Barack Obama
The theme for Veterans Day 2020 is: “Vision: Veterans in Focus.” All Veterans make a sacrifice to serve their country, whether physically, emotionally, or by being away from their loved ones and missing important life moments.

What does Veterans Day mean to You? Every year, on November 11, we gather to honor and salute all of our brave armed forces; about 18+ million male and female Veterans who served in the United States Armed Forces.  Veterans Day, also known as Remembrance Day or Armistice Day; is a time when we honor those who fought wars so the rest of us could have world peace. As I write this post, in the throes of a global pandemic with Covid-19 numbers rising, our servicemen and women continue to serve on US bases around the world. They are our eyes and ears abroad, ensuring our safety at home.  Even though I’ve shared the genesis of this important tradition in previous posts, it is imperative that we revisit the history of Veterans Day, learn and teach our children about it, and honor all who gave selflessly and fearlessly in service to this country.

On November 11, 1947, Raymond Weeks of Birmingham, Alabama, organized the first Veterans Day parade, (it was called Armistice Day back then), to praise our servicemen and women for their efforts.  Later on, U.S. Representative Edward H. Rees of Kansas proposed legislation for a name change from Armistice Day to Veterans Day. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill in 1954 proclaiming November 11th as Veterans Day, and everyone honored that date until another change occurred fourteen years later. Throughout this post, I have added poems and quotes to help us all connect with the insights and memories of many who lived through wars or had a loved one survive or die in a war.

 

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen – 1893-1918 via poets.org
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares, we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro Patria Mori.

 

A Veteran BY REGINALD GIBBONS via poetryfoundation
My father came down not killed
from among others, killers or killed,
for whom he’d worn a uniform,
and he lived a long afterward,

a steady man on the flattest of plains.
I called after him many times, surprised
when I heard the catch in my own voice.
He didn’t know how to find the solace

of listening to someone else speak of
what he’d seen and survived.
He himself closed his own
mouth against his own words.

In the wrong sequence, his spirit,
then his mind, and last his body
crossed over that infamous, peat-inky,
metaphorical water that has no far shore.

I think he was carried like a leaf
in currents so gentle that a duckling,
had it been alive, could have braved them,
but too strong for a leaf. And saturated

with minerals that steadily replaced
organic cells, the water turned my father,
an ex-soldier, to leaf-delicate stone, inscribed
with the axioms of countless veins.

 

Thanks by Yusef Komunyakaa – 1947- via poets.org
Thanks for the tree
between me & a sniper’s bullet.
I don’t know what made the grass
sway seconds before the Viet Cong
raised his soundless rifle.
Some voice always followed,
telling me which foot
to put down first.
Thanks for deflecting the ricochet
against that anarchy of dusk.
I was back in San Francisco
wrapped up in a woman’s wild colors,
causing some dark bird’s love call
to be shattered by daylight
when my hands reached up
& pulled a branch away
from my face. Thanks
for the vague white flower
that pointed to the gleaming metal
reflecting how it is to be broken
like mist over the grass,
as we played some deadly
game for blind gods.
What made me spot the monarch
writhing on a single thread
tied to a farmer’s gate,
holding the day together
like an unfingered guitar string,
is beyond me. Maybe the hills
grew weary & leaned a little in the heat.
Again, thanks for the dud
hand grenade tossed at my feet
outside Chu Lai. I’m still
falling through its silence.
I don’t know why the intrepid
sun touched the bayonet,
but I know that something
stood among those lost trees
& moved only when I moved.

Read more…

Motivation Mondays: International Day of Peace & World Gratitude Day

21/09/2020

“Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.” John F. Kennedy

Motivation Mondays: International Day of Peace & World Gratitude Day

Motivation Mondays: International Day of Peace & World Gratitude Day

Motivation Mondays: International Day of Peace & World Gratitude Day

Motivation Mondays: International Day of Peace & World Gratitude Day

 

United Nations International Day of Peace Student Observance

#InternationalDayOfPeace: The International Day of Peace was established in 1981 by the United Nations General Assembly… In 2001, the General Assembly unanimously voted to designate the Day as a period of non-violence and cease-fire. The United Nations invites all nations and people to honour a cessation of hostilities during the Day and to otherwise commemorate the Day through education and public awareness on issues related to peace. UN Background

Thou wilt keep him in PERFECT PEACE, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. Isaiah 26:3 KJV
When will we know true peace? Only when we experience the pain of others as ours, only when our hearts beat for comforting others when they are in pain… Mata Amritanandamayi
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. Melody Beattie
We learned about gratitude and humility – that so many people had a hand in our success, from the teachers who inspired us to the janitors who kept our school clean… and we were taught to value everyone’s contribution and treat everyone with respect. Michelle Obama

World Gratitude Day and International Day of Peace: Today, September 21, is an important and auspicious day as we celebrate both International Day of Peace and World Gratitude Day. Gratitude Day was initiated at the International East-West Center in Hawaii in 1965, and over the years it has become an important celebration of the UN Meditation Group. In our current climate, living through a global pandemic with strife and unrest as part of the equation, we need peace and gratitude more than ever. Where there is peace, gratitude flows, and vice versa. While Gratitude Day might not have the official stamp of the UN, it is a special day that complements World Peace Day; it gives us an opportunity to pause and reflect on all the things we are grateful for, and on all the ways many of our leaders bring about peaceful and positive change in the world.  If I had three wishes for Gratitude Day, it would be that we use it as an opportunity to express gratitude for the good in our lives, show kindness and compassion to others, and help those in need. Our gratitude should be expressed and shared.

What about the International Day of Peace? Each year, for International Peace Day, the UN selects a theme that serves as the guiding principle and focus of discussions on peace; the theme for 2020 is Shaping Peace Together.  The idea behind this year’s theme is that the current global COVID-19 pandemic has brought greater global awareness that we must work together to fight this virulent enemy and bring an end to wars and strife. As the UN pointed out, “our common enemy is a tireless virus that threatens our health, security, and very way of life. COVID-19 has thrown our world into turmoil and forcibly reminded us that what happens in one part of the planet can impact people everywhere.” If we are to survive this global pandemic, we must come together as nations and stand with the UN to prevent the use of the virus to promote discrimination or hatred. We must do our part by teaching our children to be grateful and to choose peace over war. Standing up for justice, speaking out against all forms of oppression, and serving our fellow man/woman are actions that propel us toward world peace and gratitude. As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a speech, “The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war. End the sickness of war and fight the disease that is ravaging our world.” We must heed this advice as our planet struggles to find its footing under our current conditions.

In the UN video above, they are holding a virtual event on the theme “Shaping Peace Together.” It will be a dialogue between UN Messengers of Peace and young people worldwide. They will discuss the Secretary-General’s call for a global ceasefire and the importance of everyone working together peacefully to fight COVID-19. Join in!

READ: Motivation Mondays: PEACE & GRATITUDE
A Gift for World Gratitude Day

I Dream A World by Langston Hughes (Peace Poem)via allpoetry.com
I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom’s way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!

My Work is Loving the World by Mary Oliver (Gratitude Poem)via awakin.org
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird –
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,
Which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

 

“Learn to be thankful to everyone, to the entire creation, even to your enemy and also to those who insult, because they all help you to grow.” Mata Amritanandamayi

Motivation Mondays: International Day of Peace & World Gratitude Day

Motivation Mondays: International Day of Peace & World Gratitude Day

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it. Eleanor Roosevelt
There can be no sustainable development without peace, and no peace without sustainable development. Peace, justice, and sustainable development are all mutually reinforcing… Peter Yeo
Today I choose to live with gratitude for the love that fills my heart, the peace that rests within my spirit, and the voice of hope that says all things are possible. Anonymous
I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace. In the world, you have tribulation and distress and suffering, but be courageous [be confident, be undaunted, be filled with joy]; I have overcome the world.” [My conquest is accomplished, My victory abiding.] John 16:33 AMP
Give yourself a gift of five minutes of contemplation in awe of everything you see around you. Go outside and turn your attention to the many miracles around you. This five-minute-a-day regimen of appreciation and gratitude will help you to focus your life in awe. Wayne Dyer

Celebrating the UN’s 75th Anniversary and the 2020 Theme: Shaping Peace Together. Since this is the 75th Anniversary of the UN, celebrating Peace is a key part of the festivities. If you recall the history of the United Nations Organization, it was initiated in 1942, when 26 nations joined forces in a Declaration of the United Nations to fight the so-called Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis, a term coined by then-President Theodore Roosevelt. However, the UN was officially created at the end of World War II in 1945 as 50 nations gathered in San Francisco for an international conference and signed the Charter of the United Nations on 26 June 1945. The organization came into full force on 24 October 1945. The main goal of the new UNO was and remains to preserve peace and help build a better world. This year, there will be a Peace Bell Ceremony, featuring the UN Secretary-General, the President of the General Assembly, and the Permanent Representative of Japan to the UN, as well as a performance by the Universal Hip Hop Museum and other festivities.

The 2020 theme for the International Day of Peace is “Shaping Peace Together,” and the UN is inviting us all to join forces by participating in #UN75, which gives us a chance to dialogue, complete a survey, share the UN Toolkit, and help raise awareness about the global effort they make towards peace. There are more ways we can join in, as the PDF below suggests. We can 1) Organize a UN75 Dialogue. 2. Educate yourself about PEACE. and 3. Engage in acts of kindness and solidarity.   We can all celebrate the day by spreading compassion, kindness, and hope in the face of the pandemic. We can stand together with the UN against attempts to use the virus to promote discrimination or hatred. Join us to shape peace together. Come back later for more!
Resources:
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP PDF
The world needs solidarity. Join #UN75
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry via gratefulness.org
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world and am free.
Gratitude – Poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery via poemhunter.com
I thank thee, friend, for the beautiful thought
That in words well-chosen thou gavest to me,
Deep in the life of my soul, it has wrought
With its own rare essence to ever imbue me,
To gleam like a star over devious ways,
To bloom like a flower on the dreariest days­
Better such gift from thee to me
Than gold of the hills or pearls of the sea.

For the luster of jewels and gold may depart,
And they have in them no life of the giver,
But this gracious gift from thy heart to my heart
Shall witness to me of thy love forever;
Yea, it shall always abide with me
As a part of my immortality;
For a beautiful thought is a thing divine,
So I thank thee, oh, friend, for this gift of thine.
Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace, Saint Francis Prayer via catholic.org
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.

 

The details for Motivation Mondays are below. Join in! The themes for AUG – SEP 2020 are:

AUG

08/01 – 01 SUMMER, 04 Obama Day, 07 Purple Heart Day, Cat Day
08/09 – 09 Book Lovers Day, 12 International Youth Day, 15 National Relaxation Day
08/16 – 17 Nonprofit day, 19 National Aviation Day, World Humanitarian Day, World Photography Day, 22 Commemoration of Victims of Religious Violence Day
08/23 – 23 Slave Trade Remembrance Day, 26 Women’s Equality Day, National Dog Day
08/30 – 30 Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance Day, 31 Drug Overdose Awareness Day

SEPT

09/01 – 05 International Day of Charity, National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month
09/06 – 06 Read a Book  Day, 07 Labor Day, 11 Patriot Day
09/13 – 13 Grandparents Day, 18 Rosh Hashanah Starts, AIDS, and Aging Awareness Day
09/20 – 20 Rosh Hashanah ends, 21 International Peace Day, World Gratitude Day, 22 Start of Fall
09/27 – 27 Yom Kippur starts,29 National Coffee Day
National Preparedness Month, National Childhood Cancer Awareness, National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, National School Success Month, National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery, National Sickle Cell Disease Awareness, National Hispanic Heritage Month

 

Read more…

Motivation 2020: Women’s Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

26/08/2020

“You cannot be neutral. You must either join with us who believe in the bright future or be destroyed by those who would return us to the dark past.” Daisy Elizabeth Adams Lampkin

Motivation 2020: Women's Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

Motivation 2020: Women’s Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

Motivation 2020: Women’s Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

Motivation 2020: Women’s Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

Motivation 2020: Women's Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

Motivation 2020: Women’s Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

There must always be a remedy for wrong and injustice if we only know how to find it.” Ida B. Wells
We have made a way when there was no way.” Rosalyn Terborg-Penn
I appeal on behalf of four millions of men, women, and children who are chattels in the Southern States of America, Not because they are identical with my race and color, though I am proud of that identity, but because they are men and women. Sarah Parker Redmond
Seeking no favors because of our color, nor patronage because of our needs, we knock at the bar of justice, asking an equal chance.” Mary Church Terrell
The crowning glory of American citizenship is that it may be shared equally by people of every nationality, complexion, and sex. Mary-Ann Shadd Cary
Now is the time for our women to begin to try to lift up their heads and plant the roots of progress under the hearthstone. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
If you as parents cut corners, your children will too. If you lie, they will too. If you spend all your money on yourselves and tithe no portion of it for charities, colleges, churches, synagogues, and civic causes, your children won’t either. And if parents snicker at racial and gender jokes, another generation will pass on the poison adults still have not had the courage to snuff out. Marian Wright Edelman
There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before. So I am for keeping the thing going while things are stirring; because if we wait till it is still, it will take a great while to get it going again. (Equal Rights Convention, New York, 1867) Sojourner Truth

Are You Familiar with Women’s Equality Day?  Women’s Equality Day is on August 26, and it is the centennial celebration of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote in the USA. It commemorates the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits the states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex. While many black women participated in the movement, they were excluded from the historical records celebrating this achievement. According to the book, African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850-1920 (1998) by Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, which some saw as a response to the “History of Women’s Suffrage,” a six-volume work, begun in 1881 and edited by Anthony, Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage, the American suffrage movement erased from historical records, the many black women who attended suffrage meetings, organized suffrage clubs, and promoted the cause to grant women the freedom to vote.

Rosalyn Terborg-Penn‘s book identified more than 120 black women, including Sojourner Truth, Mary-Ann Shadd Cary, Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, Sarah Parker Remond, and many other black women who were described as “hundreds of nameless black women.” These notable women and others had participated tirelessly in the suffrage fight. The black suffragettes continued their efforts because they knew the goal was bigger than them and to give up would be dangerous for the plight of black people. The racial divide grew and became glaringly obvious in 1913 when the white organizers of a major suffragist parade in Washington ordered black participants to march in the rear. So, even though the 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920, said that the right to vote could not be denied on the basis of sex, Blacks of both sexes, especially in the South, were effectively barred from voting by poll taxes, literacy tests, and many other forms of intimidation that included lynchings. It was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that black people found their footing in the polls. Many of the photos, in the collages in this post, are of African American Women in the Suffrage Movement and a few notables from a long list. Do you recognize any of the women featured in the photos? I have also included at least one quote from the many women featured here. Please share in the comments

African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850-1920 (1998)Rosalyn Terborg-Penn
National Women’s History Alliance: Returning the Suffrage Heroes to the Pages of History
Motivation Mondays: International Women’s Day #GenerationEquality #EachforEqual

 

Voting Rights for All After the 19th Amendment
The 19th Amendment did not guarantee that all women and men in the United States could vote. Securing this essential right has been a long struggle that for some, continues on to this day.
• 1924 Indian Citizenship Act – Native Americans deemed US citizens, but states continue to decide who votes. Many continue to disenfranchise Native Americans.
• 1943 Magnuson Act – Chinese in America granted the right to become citizens, and therefore to vote (the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 previously prevented this).
• 1962 New Mexico is the last state to enfranchise Native Americans.
• 1965 Voting Rights Act – African Americans and Native Americans continued to face exclusion from voting through mechanisms like poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 eliminated many of these. From “The 19th Amendment: A Crash Course,” National Park Service, nps.gov

 

 

“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” Ida B. Wells

Motivation 2020: Women's Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

Motivation 2020: Women’s Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

Motivation 2020: Women's Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

Motivation 2020: Women’s Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

Motivation 2020: Women's Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

Motivation 2020: Women’s Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

Motivation 2020: Women's Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

Motivation 2020: Women’s Equality Day #womensvote100 #equalitycantwait

“Lifting as we climb … we knock at the bar of justice, asking an equal chance.” Mary Church Terrell
“The true aim of female education should be, not a development of one or two, but all the faculties of the human soul, because no perfect womanhood is developed by imperfect culture.” Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
I do not think the mere extension of the ballot a panacea for all the ills of our national life. What we need to-day is not simply more voters, but better voters. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
“Countermovements among racists and sexists and Nazifiers are just as relentless as dirt on a coffee table…Every housewife knows that if you don’t sooner or later dust…the whole place will be dirty again.”Florynce Kennedy
When the ballot is put into the hands of the American woman the world is going to get a correct estimate of the Negro woman. It will find her a tower of strength of which poets have never sung, orators have never spoken, and scholars have never written. Nannie Helen Burroughs
“I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive.” Harriet Tubman
“Whatever glory belongs to the race for a development unprecedented in history for the given length of time, a full share belongs to the womanhood of the race.”Mary Mcleod Bethune
Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness. Oprah Winfrey
If any of us hopes to survive, s/he must meet the extremity of the American female condition with an immediate and political response. The thoroughly destructive and indefensible subjugation of the majority of Americans cannot continue except at the peril of the entire body politic. June Jordan

Let’s celebrate Women’s Equality Day because, as I pointed out above, today, August 26, 2020, is Women’s Suffrage Centennial Day –  the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution which prohibits the states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex. Even though so many women here and around the world continue to suffer from discriminatory practices and all forms of gender inequities, we must never give up. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” The road to equality has been a tough and hard-won battle, and it took the collective effort of so many women from all walks of life to achieve it. Did you know that in 1944, skilled female workers earned an average weekly wage of $31.21? Despite federal regulations requiring equitable pay for similar work, their male counterparts in similar positions earned $54.65 weekly. When the war ended, some women were ready to return to their pre-war domestic lives. However, others who wanted or needed to continue working, found their opportunities were limited as men returned home and the demand for war materials decreased. Today, women earn between 83-98 cents on the dollar for the same jobs that men do for more money. Minority women earn less than white women and the efforts to extend equity to all women remain a bone of contention in Congress. As we gather to celebrate 100 years of having the vote, we must not forget our sisters who are voiceless, stuck in minimum wage jobs with no healthcare, or with limited resources and education. The gender pay gap is real and remains a challenge here and elsewhere. Come back for more on the history of this Important Event.

Smithsonian: Five You Should Know: African American Suffragists
Motivation Mondays: Women’s Equality Day #Quotes
Thoughtco: Important Black Women in American History

 

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain’t I A Woman?
Delivered 1851 Women’s Rights Convention, Old Stone Church (since demolished), Akron, Ohio via nps.gov

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head 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 borne thirteen 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?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [member of audience whispers, “intellect”] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say. [1]

 

 

The details for Motivation Mondays are below. Join in! The themes for JUL – AUG 2020 are:

JULY

07/01 – 01 SUMMER, 04 Independence Day, 06 D-Day,
07/05 – 07 World Chocolate Day
07/12 – 18 Nelson Mandela Day,
07/19 – 24 International Self-Care Day
07/26 – 28 Parents Day, 30 International Day of Friendship, World Day Against Trafficking in Persons

AUG

08/01 – 01 SUMMER, 04 Obama Day, 07 Purple Heart Day, Cat Day
08/09 – 09 Book Lovers Day, 12 International Youth Day, 15 National Relaxation Day
08/16 – 17 Nonprofit day, 19 National Aviation Day, World Humanitarian Day, World Photography Day, 22 Commemoration of Victims of Religious Violence Day
08/23 – 23 Slave Trade Remembrance Day, 26 Women’s Equality Day, National Dog Day
08/30 – 30 Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance Day, 31 Drug Overdose Awareness Day

 

 

Read more…