In 1619, the first ship carrying kidnapped Africans landed on the shores of what was then the British colony of Virginia. From that year until 1808, Africans were continuously kidnapped, shipped across the Atlantic, and sold into slavery, despite growing recognition of the horrific conditions of the Middle Passage and the immense human suffering it caused. The government eventually outlawed the transatlantic slave trade in 1808, partly because the brutal journey diminished profits. However, for the next 57 years, Black bodies continued to be bought, sold, beaten, and held in inhumane conditions through the internal system of chattel slavery while the country profited heavily from this business. After emancipation, a period of Reconstruction was followed by more than seventy years of Jim Crow segregation.

 Throughout this history, Black men and women revolted against their oppressors so that people like myself could enjoy the freedoms that have been promised since the beginning of this nation. Yet, these efforts are diminished if we fail to appreciate all those involved. Our Founding Fathers created this country on the value that “all men are created equal,” but what about the non-white, non-male population of this nation? History shows that they didn’t even mean all men, let alone women. Yet, even as the fight for equality advanced, it repeatedly sidelined those who bore the heaviest burdens—most notably Black women. Their experiences, shaped by the intersecting forces of racism and sexism, are often ignored, revealing a deeper truth—lasting liberation cannot be achieved without fully recognizing and centering the voices of those most marginalized, especially Black women whose contributions have been essential yet frequently erased.

In the lengthy fight for racial equality, one of the most recognizable figures is Frederick Douglass. The voice of Frederick Douglass, whether through his essays or speeches, made white America listen to the voice of the enslaved during a time when literacy among slaves was a crime punishable by death. It also put him in uncomfortable positions, such as an orator for a 4th of July speech. This awkward assignment led to the creation of one of his most informational and powerful works almost a decade prior to the American Civil War, and emphasized the irony that he, a previously enslaved man during a period when those like him were enslaved and treated like cattle, was selected to speak about the national independence of the United States of America.

 Douglass engages with this reality in his powerful speech What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? He not only focuses on his own perspective as a formerly enslaved man but also directly addresses the white Christians in his audience, challenging their moral hypocrisy. Halfway through his speech, he shifts from praising the Founding Fathers to exposing their contradictions, declaring, “And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters ever practiced on mankind” (Douglass 218). By stating that their fathersfounded this country on truly honorable values, he is feeding into the egos of the audience (Douglass 195-218). He then transitions by asking them to see the “freedom” of America through the lens of the enslaved Black population of this country, to imagine the perspective of people whom the founding fathers kept in bondage and did not extend American patriotism to. How could men dedicated to overthrowing oppression be tyrants in their own right? It showcases that these men only cared about the tyranny affecting them rather than the Black and female bodies that also made up this nation.

While Douglass was undoubtedly correct in exposing the hypocrisy of a nation that celebrated freedom while upholding slavery, his argument still reflects the limitations of his time—and of his own perspective. As he progresses within his argument in his Fourth of July speech, his own biases leak through, particularly regarding the role of women. The limited times he does mention women within his speech are when they are lumped together with children in terms of being under the protection of the Black man or when their bodies are exposed at auctions (Douglass 205-206, 211). Not once is the Black woman described as an equal to the Black man, thereby cosigning the view of women seemingly shared by him and the white men he addresses. If anything, he utilizes the white man’s ideology of feminine virtue to try to gain empathy for them. What man would want their wife’s virtue stripped away, with the eyes of men upon her while she is sold like property? This distinction is not made to illustrate the suffering of black women, but to further gain sympathy for his argument. In his eyes, women have only a particular role — to care for the home, the children, and them as men. They are only an extension of the man, and not their own person.

This lack of gender equality is especially clear when he declares, “When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man” (Douglass 206). He brings attention to the poor treatment of the enslaved and their social statuses being that of animals, while the animals they are compared to can clearly differentiate their black bodies as human beings and not that of their mammalian peers. But would these animals not also be unable to differentiate between a human man and woman? While this line is a powerful assertion of Black humanity, it also reveals the gendered framing of his argument—the enslaved person, in his eyes, is male. In fighting for recognition, Douglass unintentionally narrows the struggle, reinforcing a hierarchy that excludes the equally brutalized experiences of Black women. While “man” is a term that can be used to include all of mankind, by using this phrasing at other times within his speech, it is clear he means the Black man.

Although Douglass’s words laid the foundation for articulating Black humanity in the face of national hypocrisy, his framing reflected the limitations of his time—particularly in its exclusion of Black women’s full experience. More than a century later, Ta-Nehisi Coates picks up that legacy and pushes it further. Where Douglass confronted the moral contradictions of American slavery, Coates compels us to examine the enduring consequences of that system today. The 13th Amendment may have abolished slavery “except as a punishment for crime,” but that loophole became the foundation for new forms of racial control. The obstacles Coates, I, and the rest of the modern Black population face are drastically different from the reality of Douglass. We live in a nation that claims to be equal and has legislation in place for civil rights, yet it still harbors functioning Ku Klux Klan chapters. This is a nation where 12-year-old Tamir Rice can be murdered by police pledged to protect and serve because he was playing with a toy in a park, while white terrorists can storm the country’s Capitol and be called “patriots.”

Coates addresses the modern systems of oppression through the form of a letter to his son. To emphasize that the legacy of racial control is still present today, Coates writes, “We are still pursued. We are still unsafe. I think of your grandfather and how he was called ‘George’ by white men who could not be bothered to learn his name. I think of how we were all taught that our bodies were inferior” (Coates 82). Coates wants his son to understand that even though slavery was abolished nearly 200 years ago and Black people have made countless social advancements, at the core of this country’s institutions and in the minds of many of its people, we are still not seen as equal. It wasn’t long ago that his father couldn’t even correct white men who refused to acknowledge his name. Their bodies, names, and lives were viewed—and often treated—as less than those of white men.

Even as Coates exposes the ongoing dangers of being Black in America, his narrative also draws attention to the complex parallels and stark contrasts between his experience and that of Douglass—two Black men born in Baltimore, centuries apart, yet shaped by a legacy that refuses to loosen its grip. In the Baltimore Douglass came to know, he learned he was the property of another man—a white man. For Coates, he was legally free, his fears did not stem from the weight of white ownership but rather from what his own peers—who were also afraid—might do. He lives with the reality that those who look like him might inflict bodily harm—the very outcome Willie Lynch envisioned. A society so traumatized by the history of abuse that its chains are no longer physical but mental, where we hurt each other so our oppressors no longer have to get their hands dirty. I don’t think Douglass would be happy with this modern existence. Coates is right in his belief that the American Dream and this country weren’t created with our prosperity in mind, although he falls short in fully recognizing the place of Black women within this system.

Coates mentions Black women throughout his essay. He describes the tools his mother gave him to become a critical thinker, the young women in college who helped him grow, and even his wife and her pursuit of deeper personal understanding through her travels. When his wife travels to France, she undergoes a powerful personal transformation where she begins to grasp her greater role within society outside of American suburbia. Yet, instead of sharing more about her growth, he instead takes his own trip to France where he draws the same conclusions as her — the deepness of systemic racism is purely an American experience. While he thinks through their place in France through the lens of Black people, he never discusses her thoughts being there as a woman. This is a common thread throughout his discussions of women in the letter. When Coates speaks of Black women to his son, they exist primarily in relation to his own development as a Black man, and their unique struggles as women are frequently overlooked. Is that the only role of Black women? Are we only here to uplift Black men? Or is this the dilemma we face at the intersection of race and gender?

A great woman, orator, intellectual, and activist once posed a strikingly similar question at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851. Her name was Sojourner Truth. Like Douglass, she was invited to speak—yet hers was a speech grounded in a different kind of irony. Unlike Douglass, Truth did not have the privilege of manhood to grant her credibility or sympathy in the eyes of white audiences. Instead, she turned her exclusion into a powerful challenge, forcing both women and men to confront how they benefited from a caste system that placed her—a poor, Black woman—at its very bottom. Do you know what she asked them? “Ain’t I a Woman?” (Truth). Just as Douglass believed it was self-evident that the enslaved person was a “man,” Truth questioned why her womanhood wasn’t equally obvious. Apparently, it wasn’t—because while white suffragettes lamented being helped from carriages and doted on by men, she had never received such treatment.

Truth’s very existence challenged both the pedestal that white women occupied and the invisibility that Black women endured. As further proof of her strength and exclusion, she declares, “I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well!” (Truth). Like Douglass, Truth was formerly enslaved. She performed manual labor right alongside men and was punished just like them—yet she was never protected or provided for in the ways Douglass suggested. Instead, she was treated like an animal, just as Black men were. And she was not alone. Countless other Black women, like Harriet Tubman, Mary Prince, and many whose names we will never know, endured the same brutal labor and abuse. Their stories often went untold, but their suffering—and their strength—was just as real.

Beyond the fields and backbreaking manual labor, Black women were still expected to fulfill domestic duties—birthing children born without freedom, watching them be sold off or die before their first breath, and even nursing their enslavers’ children while their own went hungry. Truth captures this tragedy through her own lived experience—children sold and never seen again—a heartbreak that was all too common for Black mothers of her time. A generation of Kizzys, torn from their families, their names and futures stolen before they had a chance to live them. ​​As she heartbreakingly states, “And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me!” (Truth). Sojourner Truth’s cry was not just one of pain—it was a declaration of resistance, a demand to be seen in full humanity. Her words echo through generations of Black women who have borne grief in silence, their pain ignored, their strength taken for granted.

It was Mamie Till-Mobley’s grief—raw, unfiltered, and courageous—that exposed the brutality of racism to the world. When she chose to hold an open-casket funeral for her son, Emmett Till, she didn’t just mourn—she ignited a movement. “I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby,” she declared. In doing so, she forced the North to confront the horrors the South had been inflicting on Black bodies for generations—the same bodies that Ta-Nehisi Coates centers in Between the World and Me when he says, “The Dream rests on our backs, the bedding made from our bodies” (Coates 11). In the history of this country, Black bodies like the body of Emmett Till built the capitol and Wall Street and started movements. Mamie Till does this in her own right by making her son’s mutilated body visible nationwide; she also puts her own body at risk of Southern retaliation. But she didn’t care, because she knew the courts wouldn’t bring justice for Emmett. Her act of radical visibility became a catalyst, shaking a complacent nation and fueling the outrage that powered the fight for civil rights.

Just months after Emmett Till’s murder, a young girl not much older than he had been would carry the weight of history on her shoulders. Claudette Colvin, just 15 and pregnant, refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She knew her rights—knew the Constitution protected her—and she would not be moved until she was forcibly removed. “I could not move because history had me glued to the seat … It felt like Sojourner Truth’s hands were pushing down on one shoulder, and Harriet Tubman’s hand was pushing down on the other shoulder, and I could not move,” she later recalled. That moment of defiance, driven by her youthful spunk and unshakable courage, galvanized the NAACP and laid the groundwork for the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Though history often remembers Rosa Parks, it was Claudette who helped set it in motion.

Claudette Colvin’s refusal to be erased set a precedent for the bold defiance that Angela Davis would later embody. Davis is the epitome of Black girl intelligence and radical resistance. A scholar, an activist, a member of both the Communist Party and the Black Panther Party, she made her voice so undeniably heard that the U.S. government placed her on its most wanted list. Her crime? Refusing to be silent. “I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I’m changing the things I cannot accept,” Davis declared. Her words, like her legacy, are not just a moment in the past—they are still present. Claudette Colvin and Angela Davis are both still alive, reminders that this fight for justice is not as distant as some would have us believe. These women weren’t relics; they were revolutionaries, and they’re still here.

Yet when we are taught about the civil rights movement or the Black Panther Party—just as when we are taught about slavery—the stories center men. We hear about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Huey Newton, and Frederick Douglass. Even white men like John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln are often elevated before the few women mentioned, like Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman. The great women behind these movements are too often erased, tucked away, or only presented in service of the men around them—just as Douglass once suggested, and as Coates subtly critiques when he frames women as support beams in the development of Black men. Yet Black women have never let that erasure stop them. With or without the support of Black men, they have persisted—refusing to let anyone else define their power, purpose, or place in history.

Shirley Chisholm, too, refused to let anyone define her limits. When she became the first Black woman elected to Congress, she didn’t enter with the intention of just representing her district—she wanted to serve the entire nation. People thought she was already speaking out of turn just by holding office, but Chisholm didn’t stop there. She ran for president. She knew the odds were stacked against her. She knew the country wasn’t ready. And still, she ran—not to win, but to show us that we could. “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair,” she famously said. If not for her courage, we might never have known the power of women like Michelle Obama or Kamala Harris. She made it known: we belong not just in the room—but at the head of the table.

All of these women inspire me—and they should inspire every little Black girl who’s ever been told she’s too loud, too passionate, too smart, too intimidating, too emotional. We deserve to feel and express all of that. We should never have to dim ourselves for the comfort of white America—or even for Black men. Too often, voices like Douglass and Coates—while powerful—leave Black women in the margins. We belong in the center. The lived experiences of Black women must be taught so others can witness the magic we create through adversity—and understand how the brilliance of our minds made us the most educated group in this country. When these stories are withheld, the labor and legacy of Black women are erased—even though our work has uplifted everyone. The exploitation of Black women’s bodies laid the foundation for gynecology. Our activism fueled the civil rights, suffrage, and women’s power movements. Black women have always shown up for others—rarely receiving anything in return.

So while men like Douglass and Coates asked the nation to see the manhood that they felt this country denied Black men, Black women were forced to prove they were even human. They didn’t just have to show the world that they deserve equal rights to their male counterparts; they had to fight to be acknowledged by anyone first. To compensate for the double disadvantage of their race and gender, they have to work 100 times as hard to get the outcomes in life they deserve. Because of Black women like Sojourner Truth or Shirley Chisholm, I know that my dreams of public service are possible, that my voice will be heard, and that I will bring my own seat to the table if anyone tries to ignore me. These stories are American history that, if ignored, are only silencing the voices and actions of women who worked so hard for their dreams. They are examples that our bodies, like everyone else’s, are human. More than that, Black women are activists, writers, mothers, lawyers, athletes, presidential candidates, and so much more than the world ever expected of us.

Works Cited

American Experience, PBS. “Mamie Till Mobley.” American Experience | PBS, 12 May 2017, www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/emmett-biography-mamie-till-mobley.

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. One World, 2015.

Douglass, Frederick. The Portable Frederick Douglass. Penguin, 2016.

Now, Democracy. “The Other Rosa Parks: Now 73, Claudette Colvin Was First to Refuse Giving up Seat on Montgomery Bus.” Democracy Now!, 29 Mar. 2013, www.democracynow.org/2013/3/29/the_other_rosa_parks_now_73.

“SGN:: 2021 LGBTQ History Project: Angela Davis: Still Changing the Things She Cannot Accept.” Seattle Gay News, www.sgn.org/story/310124?

“Trinity Student Honors Shirley Chisholm – Trinity Washington University | Washington, DC.” Trinity Washington University | Washington, DC, 22 Feb. 2020, www2.trinitydc.edu/news/trinity-student-honors-shirley-chisholm/?

Truth, Sojourner. Ain’t I a Woman? Penguin, 2021.