August 13, 2015
#BlkWomenSyllabus: Scholars Seek to Use Hashtag to Advocate for Female Knowledge Empowerment
Daina Ramey Berry, Ph.D., a University of Texas at Austin history professor, and Kaye Wise Whitehead, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Loyola University in Maryland, have sparked initiatives of female empowerment with Twitter hashtags#BlkWomenSyllabus and #SayHerNameSyllabus, providing a list of resources and books for black women.
Here are some of the tweets:
Why a #SayHerNameSyllabus? Because black girls r still not Taught&Told over & over again that they r beautiful&smart pic.twitter.com/3xbFNm2Bqa
Folks @AAIHS @drashleyfarmer & I are trying to link the #blkwomensyllabus 2 #SayHerNameSyllabus http://t.co/iUFfdpOS8C
– DainaRameyBerryPhD (@lbofflesh) August 11, 2015
Berry, author of The Price for their Pound of Flesh, and Whitehead invited other scholars, intellectuals and educators to join in, offering recommendations of books, resources, and power women to promote the intellectual prowess and power of black women. Berry, who appeared on the season finale of the NBC show Who Do You Think You Are? and assisted film icon Spike Lee in tracing his family ancestry, combined efforts with Whitehead after finding similarities in the responses. Their efforts comes as the family of Sandra Bland seeks punitive damages after her death while in police custody, in addition to reports of a black woman in Texas, allegedly being illegally searched and molested by police officers.
Check out more of the hashtag and resources below: