When a large meeting of Black women voters made headlines this week, to many people it was another reminder of the major role Black women and all women have always played in creating transforming change. Women at the forefront, acting as the catalyst for progress when it needs to happen, make the front pages and the history books – though not in the numbers women’s contributions deserve, and though some books that do strive to tell the full truth about women’s history and experiences are among the texts under assault right now. But women’s influence is never fully captured by the headlines. Women have also always been the invisible backbone, unseen but strong, of both transforming social movements and of all anchor institutions in society – our families, congregations, schools, and communities.
In my own home my mother was a pillar of Shiloh Baptist Church in Bennettsville, South Carolina, where my father was pastor. Mama was director of the youth and senior choirs which often practiced in our home, church organist, founder and head of the Mothers’ Club, and fundraiser-in-chief. She organized a Cradle Roll Department and many other activities for children and young people. She raised the money to help Daddy build a new church building and to pay its bills with all kinds of community-wide events and contests. She was a natural-born organizer of people and always had a dime and an idea. Women have always employed behind the scenes essential leadership and organizational, communication, and fundraising skills to get things done.
Black women can affirm this truth many times over. When my late dear friend and mentor Dr. Dorothy Height, the longtime president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), was honored with the Congressional Gold Medal, the quote inscribed on her award spoke to many of us: “We African American Women seldom do just what we want to do, but always what we have to do. I am grateful to have been in a time and place where I could be a part of what was needed.”
There has never been a time or place where women’s voices were not needed. Women’s rights are under renewed attack in our nation. American women, especially women of color, have not yet reached equality on a range of key measures in the U.S., including equal pay. But even when women’s chances are unequal, the will of women collectively is not and never has been. As a growing number of women gain political power all the way to the highest levels, and a growing number of young women realize how critical it is to use to use their power to vote in every election, women in and out of the headlines can keep creating transforming change.