Devastating Ballroom Beauties

More YouTube ballroom footage of the legendary ballroom ladies of the late 80's and 90's compiled by Eve Harlowe.

 

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Why The Conservafools Hate FDR

Because he told the truth about y'all.







The Second Bill Of Rights

Not All Women Received The Right To Vote Today

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."   United States Constitution, 19th Amendment 

Today is the 91st anniversary of the August 1920 day that the 19th Amendment to the constitution for women's suffrage was ratified by a one vote 50-49 margin in the Tennessee House of Representatives.

With Tennessee becoming the 36th state to adopt it, the 19th Amendment became the law of the land and is rightfully celebrated as a human rights advance in the States. .

But I can't let this day pass by without reminding people that not all women got the right to vote today.  Despite the involvement of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman,  Ida B. Wells, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin and Frederick Douglass, Black women had to fight for inclusion in a suffrage movement in which white women were upset that the 1870 ratification of the 15th Amendment had given Black men (in theory) the right to vote before they received it.  

White suffragettes, especially those from the South sought to "win women's suffrage through demonstrating their allegiance to white supremacy."

Translation: they threw Black women under the bus to get their suffrage rights.   That came to a head with an 1894 clash in Great Britain between Ida B. Wells and Frances E. Willard. .  

Even when on paper African American women earned the right to vote on this date, Jim Crow segregation, disenfranchisement and all the heinous bag of tricks and violence used to suppress the rights of African Americans to vote would ensure that the power of African American women voters wouldn't be felt until after the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Today the power of the African American women's vote has led to Black women getting elected to all levels of government including former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL) and a long list of distinguished former and current members of the House of Representatives.  Some of those Black women reps have provided major political leadership roles as well.

Rep.Shirley Chisholm in 1972 and Carol Moseley-Braun in 2004 made historic runs for president, and the votes of Black women are sought after by politicians seeking to build a winning electoral voting coalition    

And thanks to Black women voters, there's an African American POTUS and FLOTUS residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

So yes, today is a wonderful day to celebrate, but as with all things in America when it comes to African Americans and our long tortured history in this country, it's a bittersweet moment as well.

50th Anniversary Of The Berlin Wall Erection

I wrote about it last year, but today is the 50th anniversary of the day that at midnight East Germany began building what they called their 'Antifascist Protection Barrier'.   The rest of the world came to know it as the Berlin Wall.  

As I wrote last year, that structure was a part of the world I grew up in as a tangible symbol of the Cold War tensions that split a city and a nation in two    

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, will attend the dedication and opening of a memorial and museum to The Wall at Bernauer Strasse, which was cut in two by the construction of the wall that stood for 28 years.   There are disputed claims as to just how many people died trying to cross it.   The count ranges from 138 to the 700 claimed by victim's rights groups.  The first victim is believed to be Guenter Liftin, who was killed on August 24, 1961 and the last was Chris Gueffroy on February 6, 1989.

Two US presidents made speeches in front of it.

JFK's 1963 'Ich Bin Ein Berliner' speech.


Reagan's 1987 'Tear down this wall' speech
 


Indeed, just two years later, that Brandenburg Gate area was filled with deliriously happy people doing precisely that.