DMH Spotlight Hanover High School, 2015 presenting for Martin Luther King Day assembly Back

See all the photographs presented and their captions, here.

See a video of Melba Tolliver and the First National Women's Conference ( start at 12:14)

 

The modern era of African Americans’ nearly 140-year history in Congress began in 1971. Black Members enjoyed a tremendous surge in numbers, at least in the House, reflecting a larger historical process, as minority groups and women exercised their new freedom to participate in American society. Fully 71 percent of all African Americans who have served in Congress entered the House or Senate after 1970.1 These startling gains derived from the legacy of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and its subsequent extensions, as well as from Supreme Court decisions requiring legislative redistricting so that black voters could be represented more equitably...The post-1970 generation of black Americans in Congress marked a watershed in American history—a transition from a period of prolonged protest to full political participation.

http://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-Essays/Permanent-Interest/Introduction/


Democratic National Convention delegates outside hotel Miami Beach, 1972

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Congresssman Charles Rangel at rally for McGovern, 1972


RANGEL, Charles B., a Representative from New York; born in New York, N.Y., June 11, 1930; attended DeWitt Clinton High School; B.S., New York University School of Commerce, New York, N.Y., 1957; LL.B. (J.D.), St. John’s Law School, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1960; United States Army, 1948-1952; lawyer, private practice; assistant United States Attorney, Southern District of New York, 1963; counsel to speaker of the New York state assembly, 1965; counsel to the President’s Commission to Revise the Draft Laws, 1966; secretary, New York State Penal Law and Code Revision Commission; member of the New York state assembly, 1966-1970; elected as a Democrat to the Ninety-second and to the twenty-two succeeding Congresses (January 3, 1971-present); chair, Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control (Ninety-eighth through One Hundred Third Congresses); chair, Committee on Ways and Means (One Hundred Tenth and One Hundred Eleventh Congresses); chair, Joint Committee on Taxation (One Hundred Eleventh Congress). 92nd (1971–1973), 93rd (1973–1975), 94th (1975–1977), 95th (1977–1979), 96th (1979–1981), 97th (1981–1983), 98th (1983–1985), 99th (1985–1987), 100th (1987–1989), 101st (1989–1991), 102nd (1991–1993), 103rd (1993–1995), 104th (1995–1997), 105th (1997–1999), 106th (1999–2001), 107th (2001–2003), 108th (2003–2005), 109th (2005–2007), 110th (2007–2009), 111th (2009–2011), 112th (2011–2013), 113th (2013–2015),

114th (2015–2017)

Yvonne Braithewaite-Burke at the Democratic National Convention, Miami Beach 1972


Yvonne Braithwaite-Burke.

http://history.house.gov/People/Detail/7693?ret=True

The third generation of women in Congress, the 39 individuals who entered the House and the Senate between 1955 and 1976, legislated during an era of upheaval in America. Overlapping social and political movements during this period—the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the groundswell of protest against American intervention in the Vietnam War in the mid- to late 1960s, the women’s liberation movement and the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, and the Watergate Scandal and efforts to reform Congress in the 1970s—provided experience and impetus for a new group of feminist reformers.

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke garnered national media attention as the vice chair of the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach that nominated George McGovern.In Burke’s first term during the 93rd Congress (1973–1975), she received assignments on two committees: Public Works and Interior and Insular Affairs. She gave up both of those panels in December 1974 to accept a seat on the powerful Appropriations Committee, where she served for the duration of her House career. When Autumn Roxanne Burke was born on November 23, 1973, Yvonne Burke became the first Member to give birth while serving in Congress, “a dubious honor,” she observed. The House subsequently granted Burke maternity leave, another first in congressional history

Teacher Book Request Form

(PDF) Complimentary copies of the Office of the Historian publications Women in Congress and Black Americans in Congress are available for educators, subject to availability.

Shirley Chisolm at the Democratic National Convention Miami Beach, 1972

Left to right: Senator Thomas Eagleton, Hubert Humphrey, Shirley Chisolm, McGovern in Miami, !972

 


Shirley Chisolm 1924–2005

http://history.house.gov/People/Detail/10918?ret=True

Chisholm was the only new woman to enter Congress in 1969.

Chisholm declared her candidacy for the 1972 Democratic nomination for President, charging that none of the other candidates represented the interests of blacks and the inner–city poor. She campaigned across the country and succeeded in getting her name on 12 primary ballots, becoming as well known outside her Brooklyn neighborhood as she was in it. At the Democratic National Convention she received 152 delegate votes, or 10 percent of the total, a respectable showing given her modest funding. A 1974 Gallup Poll listed her as one of the top 10 most–admired women in America—ahead of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Coretta Scott King and tied with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for sixth place.

Speaking to the plenary of the NY State Women's Meeting, Albany, 1977

Mary Burke Nicholas (July 6, 1926 – November 30, 2014)

was an American economist, former New York state official, and advocate for women and minorities in public life. She held a variety of positions in federal, state, and city government in New York throughout the 1970s and 1980s. She was appointed the first director of New York State Women's Division by Governor Hugh Carey in 1975. In 1994 she married Walter Washington,who had previously held office as the first elected Mayor of the District of Columbia from 1967 to 1979.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Burke_Washington

Google search, images: Top Row: First, second, fourth and fifth photos by Diana Mara Henry


 

Keecia, diabetic, learned to inject insulin; Mt. Sinai Hospital, NYC

Gloria Scott, Head of Girl Scouts of the USA, opens the First National Women's Conference, Houston,

November 19-21, 1977, with SUsan B. Anthony's gavel

from the Women's Suffrage convention, Seneca Falls, NY, 1848


Members of the National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year, sponsor of the First National Women's conference: Alberta Henderson and Harry T. Edwards. In 1970, he accepted an invitation to join the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School and became the first African American to teach at the law school. In 1975, Edwards accepted an invitation to visit at Harvard Law School. He was a Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law Schoolduring the 1975–76 school year and was awarded tenure in 1976. When President Carter took office in 1977, there were only two blacks and one woman among the active federal court of appeals judges.He was 39 years old in 1980 when he joined the US court of Appeals, DC Circuit, reputedly the youngest federal court of appeals judge sitting at the time.Edwards is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the Board of Directors, Institute for Judicial Administration, NYU School of Law; and a fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

Vinie Burrows presenting at the "Celebrating Women" plenary of the NY State Women's Meeting, Albany, 1977

Butler at friends' house, Columbia, South Carolina, 1974


Hospital workers on strike demonstrating outside Madison Square Garden, NYC, where the Democratic National Convention was taking place, 1976

 

Annie Belle and Bernice, top; Annie Belle and Clara, bottom.

Which caption do you "believe" is "true?"

Part of the "Libel" exhibit,which encourages the viewer to question the image and caption as truth.


Boy with his fish, caught at Sarasota FL, 1969.


A grand jury decided not to indict Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. Scores of documents, including testimony from the proceedings as well as reports and interview transcripts considered as evidence, were released by St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch. Read the documents below. The documents are also searchable, using the search bar at the top right of each document. http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/11/us/ferguson-grand-jury-docs/index.html
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