UPDATED: Nov. 28 at 5:36 p.m.

Three leading black scholars discussed the importance of black feminism and the history of activism in the United States during a panel session Monday night.

More than 200 people filled the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications on Monday, listening to Johnnetta Betsch Cole, Beverly Guy-Sheftall and Paula Giddings.

Betsch Cole is the director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art. She’s also a former president of both Spelman College and Bennett College, historically black colleges. Paula Giddings is a writer, African American historian and professor at Smith College. Guy-Sheftall is a longtime professor of women’s studies at Spelman College.

“Black Feminists and the Transformation of American Public Life” was hosted by the Syracuse University Humanities Center and co-sponsored by the Universitywide Council on Diversity and Inclusion and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, along with the African American studies program, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Newhouse School and other campus programs.

All three women are connected by Spelman College. Betsch Cole, in 1987, was the first president of the college to be a black woman. Giddings and Guy-Sheftall said they pushed college stakeholders to choose Betsch Cole as president.

Giddings and Guy-Sheftall knew Betsch Cole would change Spelman and the future of black women, they said. Before Betsch Cole’s appointment, the college only had white women and two black men who served as president, Guy-Sheftall said.

“We didn’t just want any black woman president. We wanted a feminist black woman president,” Guy-Sheftall said.

Guy-Sheftall started her career at Spelman as a student when she was 16 years old. She eventually served as the college’s founding director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center. Giddings also taught at Spelman, but now teaches African American studies at Smith College.

During Monday’s event, the three speakers discussed the importance of collaboration. It was only through collaboration that Giddings and Guy-Sheftall rallied the Spelman community to push Betsch Cole to become president.

Betsch Cole said in comparison to men, women tend to be more collaborative. It’s a learned behavior,  Betsch Cole said, because “when you are in a nondominant group, you are going to do far better using collaboration than doing it alone.”

Giddings, during the event, recalled watching the Freedom Riders’ protests as a teenager. During the mid-20th century, the Freedom Riders rode buses throughout the South as a form of protest. At the time, Giddings wondered what it was about race that caused such violence, but also courage.

“I said, ‘What is it that’s so powerful that people are willing to die for this?’” Giddings said.

Giddings is a leading historian on Ida B. Wells, a black woman who was one of the first investigative journalists. Her work predates the careers of famous muckrakers such as Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair. Giddings said Wells has used modern methods in her discourse and writing. She’s also had the courage to challenge notions of womanhood with anti-respectability politics, Giddings added.

When the event’s moderator and director of the Humanities Center, Vivian May, asked about Betsch Cole’s greatest joy in life, she said it’s to have solid, righteous friendships with other black feminists, such as Giddings and Guy-Sheftall.

“When it happens, it is an amazing and grace-filled experience,” Betsch Cole said.

There are challenges, though, when Betsch Cole encounters white women who have not assessed their own privilege, she said. She was met by applause and nods from the crowd at that comment. It’s painful when people who are supposed to be your allies are not allies, she said.

“You can withstand almost anything your enemy gives you, but when it’s people who are supposed to be your allies, it’s when they betray you … that can really be so destructive,” Giddings said.

Near the end of the panel, Betsch Cole, was asked why she has not retired after decades of work in advancing black feminism and activism.

“I am just still so outraged. I am just still so furious about the state of things that I’m just not willing to not do something,” she said.

This story has been updated with additional information.

Published on November 27, 2017 at 11:47 pm

Contact Kennedy: krose100@syr.edu | @KennedyRose001