Group items tagged

This website is a very interesting place to read the timeline of the American women's rights movement. It goes all the way back to 1848 up to today. We can see various key events of the movement which slowly led up to the formation of Planned Parenthood as well as the FDA approval of birth control and the legalization of abortion. It is a very good resource to see how the movement evolved as well as the timeline of each important milestone achieved along the process all the way to 2009.

This page on the NBC news website offers a surprising twist to the story of the Civil Rights Movement. It brings up a great point, why is Rosa Parks one of the only women we know about as an icon of that era? Racial equality was being fought for by those in the Civil Rights movement but what about gender equality? This story gives us more to think about when we look at the image of Rosa Parks and the white man on the bus.

This article outlines the work of the Communist party in 1930s America. The Communist party was integral in mobilizing the unemployed working class in an effort to get fair and secure pay as well as jobs when unemployment drastically rose during the great depression. The Communist Party lead marches and protests, though they sometimes ended in bloodshed as the media depicted these demonstrations as riots. The party also provided an alternative to the exclusionary American Federation of Labor. It also provided framework for the mobilization of the black worker during this time.

This article in the African American History section of About.com gives a brief biographical summary of Parks' life and civil rights accomplishments. Interestingly, it mentions that Parks' was aware of the divide between black and white people as a child, "I'd see the bus pass every day. But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and white world." It is apparent that Parks' would no longer accept what was custom the day she refused to give up her seat on that Montgomery bus. The African American History section on About.com has an extensive collection of historical information, timelines, video clips, facts of African American activists, writers, artists, politicians, and quite a bit of information on Parks and the Civil Rights movement.

This website provides more context and background to the infamous moment on the Montgomery bus captured in the initial image shown. The lore states that Parks refused to give up the seat because her feet were tired after a long day of working but in reality, she was aware of plans of local activists to challenge the bus laws. Her arrest propelled the civil rights movement forward and resulted in a year long bus boycott. This website presents Rosa Parks angle differently than most others tend to. It's interesting to see her described as a part of the movement as opposed to someone who just happened to be somewhere.

This article beautifully highlights the life of Rosa Parks and provides background information on both her life and the image in question. This article provides a story and a narrative of the life of Rosa Parks and how she triumphed and advanced the civil rights movement and her legacy remains everlasting today and for the future. The site provides background information on the image that we observed in this unit as it includes it within the context of the story and provides the information in that the image was a staged portrait for Look magazine of Rosa Parks in front of a bus in December of 1956. The finding represents the notion of both femininity and the impact of the civil rights movement.

This article is a very important article that helps cover and highlight both the influence that Rosa Parks had on the civil rights movement but most importantly helps answer the question as to who the man was behind Rosa Parks in the timeless image that we have been analyzing in this unit. This site and article is especially useful in exploring the image in question as the entire article helps to highlight and explain the image in question. As the article notes, the man in the image is not a segregationist as some may assume to be, but rather is Nicholas C. Chriss who was a reporter working at the time in covering the Civil Rights movement. Details of Mr. Chriss and the meaning of the picture is detailed and explained throughout the article.

This page from the Oberlin Collge LGBT Community History site describes the link between the Women's Movement of the early 1970s and lesbianism. The page offers insight into why many women were undergoing huge changes in the way they thought about traditional gender roles and sexuality in the late 60s and early 70s.

About.com's page about 1970s feminist activities provides a detailed list of feminist achievement during the '70s. The links provided take us to some of the struggles that the feminist movement took on such as the Equal Rights Amendment, Roe v. Wade, Feminist poetry as well as the Feminist art movement. The links also point to the second wave of Feminism in the 1960s-1970s. Women's liberation was the topic du jour during that time and this site goes into some detail about the actual activities and struggles. The explanations are a bit short, but the links take us to articles about each topic. This is a good starting point to start digging into the subject.

Encyclopedia Britannica's article about the women's movement in the United States offers insight to the movement's history and evolution. One of the catalysts it discusses is Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" which wrote about the suburban housewife's boredom and lack of fulfillment even though they have been educated that they had a nice house, children and husbands. The article also explains how the National Organization for Women (NOW) was created due to the slow understanding that Women needed a liberation group of their own equivalent to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. There is a paragraph about the movement's successes such as the backing of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which granted Women access to jobs in every corner of the U.S. economy.

Truth in Progress is a website dedicated to the exploration of the civil rights histories, including both black and LGBT perspectives. The site invites participation as its members travel the country to document experiences regarding sexual orientation, racial issues, and religion and how these topics intersect with one another. The video "Stonewall and Christopher Street" is a short video discussing how the gay liberation parade where Donna Gottschalk was photographed, and the the Stonewall riots have become "memorialized" worldwide. Although many other significant moments occurred in the history of the gay rights movement, these two in particular have become "symbolic" for the LGBT community and others interested in its history. The speaker points out how Stonewall is often viewed as the beginning of the movement though other important steps came earlier.

This site takes a look into women who attended college during the late 1800s and early 1900s. These women were determined to get an education. In 1870, only .7% of students were women. By 1920, it was still only 7.6%. It wasn't until the Women's Movement that woman made a significant appearance in colleges. I thought this site gave a good background to the presence of women in college before and leading up to the Women's Movement, which helps understand the impact the movement had.

This website is a textbook alternative, and presents key points as well as a variety of information in the format of a chapter overview and/or summary. In this case, it is pinpointing the expansion of the Civil Rights Movement and the Gay and Lesbian Rights movements which were seeking acceptance and equality for the LGBT community.

In 1960, the world of American women was limited in almost every respect, from family life to the workplace. A woman was expected to They were legally subject to their husbands via "head and master laws," and they had no legal right to any of their husbands' earnings or property, aside from a limited right to "proper support"; husbands, however, would control their wives' property and earnings. Working women were paid lower salaries than men and denied opportunities promotions. The feminist movement of the 1960s and '70s originally focused on equality in the workplace, such as denial of access to better jobs and salary. Later they began to fight for "women's liberation" which included gaining control of their own private lives. This relates to the image as Donna Gottschalk was a feminist also fighting for women equality as well as gay rights.

This webpage explores the three waves of feminism. The first is the one that we usually think of when we think about early feminism, Rosie the Riveter, yes we can and suffrage. The second wave coincided with many other civil rights activist groups, we saw the introduction of women of color and lower class women. We saw a focus on family, sexuality and reproductive rights. The third, and current, wave is about defining roles and identities for themselves and not based on patriarchy or misogyny. It's okay to embrace sexuality, sexualized appearances, etc, as long as it's a choice and not forced.

One thing that I extract from this site is the fact that there was not acceptance for gay and lesbian people in the 60's. It is very apparent that there was a social struggle. Our own police and politicians fought against their rights. I cannot even begin to understand that riots and resentment was present when organized social movements were expressed. Jailed and violated gay and lesbians persisted to gain rights and like anything else in this society some sacrificed their own safety to send out the message that they were human beings that deserved respect.

The multimedia presentation on the 1970's Women's Liberation Movement pays homage to some of the most influential leaders in the fight for female equality. Including moments like Billie Jean King's famous "battle of the sexes" tennis match, this video gives the viewer a glimpse into many of the victories that women achieved in the progression of the female presence in the United States. Striking photographs combined with video and audio recordings bring life to a great decade of change for women, and the belief that sex and gender should not affect human rights for Americans.

This is the photo of American civil rights icon Rosa Parks meeting South Africa's icon, Nelson Mandela. The significance is how important each of these people where in the civil rights movement in their respective countries. Both of these people where arrested for their roles and their actions.

This image of the first African American President sitting in the same bus as civil rights icon Rosa Parks speaks volumes. The courage of her stand was part of the civil rights movement that brought about change and still continues to this day.

The reason I chose something other than the discussion of Rosa Parks is because I do not think that you can speak about one thing without speaking about the other in the Civil Rights Movement.  This is just important as its former.  Also, in this picture is Martin Luther King, Jr., who is another iconic figure in the Civil Rights Movement.  This is particularly important as we have just reached the 50th Anniversary on the March on Washington.  Voting rights was not only a race issue, it was a gender issue.  The article speaks about the optimism that many people had during these times.  People thought that change was possible.  You cannot have change without optimism.