Most people don’t attribute these words to the late great Black feminist poet June Jordan. Many don’t realize that Sweet Honey in the Rock also turned those words into a song. Alice Walker has written, “Hearing this song, I have witnessed thousands of people rise to their feet in joyful recognition and affirmation.” I am one of those people who feels affirmed, and after working on my book for twelve years, I realize that I was the one I was waiting for.Today you can go to www.amazon.com and order my first book, Black Feminist Politics from Kennedy to Clinton. It's a big day for me both personally, and professionally. And like all good journeys, it started with questions, questions that no one else seemed to be asking at the time.
Why was Dr. Joycelyn Elders forced to leave her post? Why didn't any of the women in the Congressional Black Caucus who voted against Clarence Thomas dare to speak on behalf of Anita Hill? Why was Congresswoman Barbara Lee alone in her opposition to the Iraq war resolution?
Since the sixties, Black women have tried to gain centrality by their participation in Presidential Commissions, Black feminist organizations, theatrical productions, film adaptations of literature, beauty pageants, electoral politics, and Presidential appointments. But looking at the years between 1961 and 2001, were Black women able to gain real political power?
Black Feminist Politics is being released the same month that former U.S. representative Cynthia McKinney was taken into custody by Israeli military officials, while she was on a humanitarian mission to provide aid to the ravaged Palestinian citizens in Gaza.
It is also being released the same month that President Barack Obama has nominated my husband’s colleague, Dr. Regina Benjamin, to be Surgeon General, 15 years after President Bill Clinton fired Dr. Joycelyn Elders.
July 2009 is a time that we get to witness a woman of color participate in a Senate confirmation hearing for an actual seat on the Supreme Court, as opposed to being judged by 98 male senators during someone else’s confirmation.
Writing this book during the Bush administration was no easy feat. There were many naysayers along the way, but I’d like to publicly thank three Black men who embraced Black feminism: Professors Manning Marable, Peniel Joseph, and Mark Anthony Neal.
I’d also like to dedicate this blog entry to every Black woman who was told that what she wanted to write was peripheral to American politics. Peripheral? Just imagine for a moment if Barbara Lee's advocacy against giving a sitting president a blank check had been at the forefront of American politics instead of the periphery. How much money would have been saved? How many lives?
So yes, "We are the ones we've been waiting for." And this book is for all of us.
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