Women creating change

(Children’s Defense Fund) – 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. 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.Related Stories 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...