A Usable Past

An awesome post:

Today would have been the 98th birthday of Montgomery’s beloved seamstress and Secretary of the NAACP.  Parks was 42 at the time of her political activism on that bus, which directly led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Although she was not the first woman who sat down in an act of civil disobedience (if you do not know about Claudette Colvin, go read about her here. Now.), she has become an icon of American and civil rights history. Happy birthday, Ms. Parks.

Claudette Colvin

More civil rights history this week – February 2, 1960:

Want another reason to dig Debbie Wasserman Schultz?  She defines the bullshit H.R. 3 as  “a violent act against women.” Which of course it is, but apparently in our Congress you need ovaries to see that.

“It really is — to suggest that there is some kind of rape that would be okay to force a woman to carry the resulting pregnancy to term, and abandon the principle that has been long held, an exception that has been settled for 30 years, is to me a violent act against women in and of itself.”

And in homo news… Baby steps for Illinois…

Oh yeah, and lesbians!

Check out “Women at War” by historian Elizabeth R. Varon at the New York Times to find out about women’s political and social involvement leading up to the Civil War.

Pretty!