Black women have historically been great organizers and proponents of social change. Learn how Black women's tradition of activism continues today online with social technologies.

1. Black Women,
Social Change
& Technology
Jessica Faye Carter
The Women’s Celebration
March 29, 2011

2. Discussion points
• Black women and social change
– Women and social change
– Enslavement, Jane Crow, Women’s Suffrage, Civil
Rights
• Black women and technology
– Social technologies
– New frontier for activism
• Towards a brighter future

3. Black Women
& Social Change

4. Women and Social Change
• Women as signals of social change
– The story of Oberwart, Austria
– Women’s suffrage
• Women’s history of activism
– Women’s rights
– Anti-slavery/abolitionist work
– Civil rights
• How women elevate societies

5. Enslavement and Jane Crow
• Enslavement and Jane Crow
– Sojourner Truth
– Harriet Tubman
– Black men vs. Black women
• Vilification of Black women
• Lack of support for Black women from Black men
• The Jacks letter
– National Association of Colored Women Clubs (1896)
– Black Sororities

6. Women’s Suffrage & Civil Rights
• Women’s Suffrage
– Parallels between White and Black women post-
emancipation
– Race/ethnicity, gender, or both?
• Civil Rights
– Women’s Political Council of Montgomery, Alabama
– Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks

7. Black Women’s Concerns: Then & Now
• Families and communities
• Healthcare, education, and political progress
• Lack of support from Black men
• Catch-22 between femininity and self-support
• “Tired of choosing”* between ethnicity and gender
• General lack of empowerment
*I first heard the phrase “Tired of Choosing” when reading Dr. Evangelina Holvino’s
“‘Tired of Choosing’: Working with the Simultaneity of Race, Gender, and Class in
Organizations,” CGO Insights Briefing Note No. 24 (March 2006). Dr. Holvino is on the
faculty of the Center for Gender in Organizations at the Simmons Graduate School of
Management.

8. Black Women
& Technology

9. The New Activism
• Social technologies are instrumental in the new
activism
– Blogs
– Internet Search (e.g., Google, Bing, Yahoo!)
– Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin
– Uprisings in Middle East and elsewhere around the world

10. Social Media & Change
• Why is social media central to this new activism?
– Facilitates aggregation of markets/groups
– Connects people in real-time
– Allows people to engage across layers of identity
– Easy sharing capabilities
– Mobile capabilities
• Vehicles for online activism
– Blogs and comments/discussion
– Petitions (Change.org, Act.ly)
– Social Lobbying (Votizen.com, PopVox.com)

11. What Black Women are Doing
• Blog activism
– WhatAboutOurDaughters.com
– BlackFemaleInterracialMarriage.com
– ActsofFaithBlog.com
– SojournersPassport.com
• Online get-togethers (meetups, tweetups)
• Conferences (e.g., Blogging While Brown, Blogalicious)
• Internet radio shows
• Online blogs/magazines

12. Activism Then and Now
Then Now
Smaller
Person Org
Social
Cause
Major
Media
Friends Org
Central
Org
Org Similar
Bloggers/
Chapter Org Influencers

13. Towards a
Brighter Future

14. Where Are We Now?
• Black women still face many of the same challenges,
but are considerably more empowered in terms of
education and economic power
– We are seeing the emergence of a new, digital activism
• Addressing concerns through cross-cultural
engagement with other multicultural women
• Rejection of the status quo
• Empowering ourselves

15. Next Steps
• Get active online
• Take up a cause, small or large, and work to effect
change (select something you have power to impact)
– Find out what others are doing
• Share your ideas with friends and acquaintances; get
feedback
• Be prepared for resistance, even from those closest to
you
• Be courageous

16. © 2011 Jessica Faye Carter
Thank You
www.jessicafayecarter.com
Twitter: @jescarter