“There’s a Chinese saying, ‘women hold up half of the world’. In the case of the civil rights movement it’s probably three-quarters of the world.”  - Julian Bond

I love that March is Women’s History Month. To me, it’s the perfect extension of Black History Month in February because Women’s History Month allows us to shine a spotlight on the women who were movers and shakers in Black History. When discussing history, we tend to pay attention only to the great men, and forget the great women and the great number of relentless individuals dedicating their lives to a cause greater than self. Great figures are necessary for movements because they are the rallying voice of millions and can channel the energy of many into a singular persuasive argument that those resisting the relinquishing of power can react to and interact with. But social movements do not happen because of singular individuals. Revolutions require solidarity and a vast support network. The real power of social change lies in the strength of grassroots organization. It requires the people who march en masse, those who bring food to people standing in line to register to vote, organizers for carpool rides so that a bus boycott can continue indefinitely, and behind the scenes volunteers that are the backbone of social justice organizations. 

During months like February and March designed to celebrate “radical” history, I remember the leadership and strength it takes to be the face of a movement, but also the amount of commitment it requires from ordinary individuals who simply want to live their lives free from oppression. During these months, I remember the women whose hard work throughout history has often gone unnoticed. I remember the women like Ella Baker, Fanny Lou Hamer, and Diane Nash whose commitment to grassroots organizing and community programs paved the way for future generations, as well as all of those men and women who carried the weight of the civil rights movement on their shoulders unnamed. I remember groups like SNCC and the BPP that went to communities to serve them, who provided services and risked their lives without waiting for permission, and exemplified the idea of participatory democracy.

It doesn’t take a lot to serve. Serving can be as simple as being open and honest with people about injustice, building positive relationships with others, or giving help to anyone who needs it. Especially when it comes to feminism, the way in which you relate to others and the sexual environment you create for yourself can be a radical act in & of itself. To quote the late great Howard Zinn, “small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world”. I appreciate National Months such as these because they have the ability to remind us that we all can make a difference and have a duty as citizens to build the beloved community Dr. King and others have worked for. 

To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to de-emphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves- unwittingly-to justify what was done. My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)-that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth. We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable of classrooms and textbooks. This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly.

The treatment of heroes (Columbus) and their victims (the Arawaks)-the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress-is only one aspect of a certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point of view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders. It is as if they, like Columbus, deserve universal acceptance, as if they-the Founding Fathers, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, the leading members of Congress, the famous Justices of the Supreme Court-represent the nation as a whole. The pretense is that there really is such a thing as “the United States,” subject to occasional conflicts and quarrels, but fundamentally a community of people with common interests. It is as if there really is a “national interest” represented in the Constitution, in territorial expansion, in the laws passed by Congress, the decisions of the courts, the development of capitalism, the culture of education and the mass media.

… My viewpoint, in telling the history of the United States, is different: that we must not accept the memory of states as our own. Nations are not communities and never have been, The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners. 

- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States 

(emphasis my own)