Joi

The topic this year was Conflict and Compromise, and my group and I decided to do our History Day Project on women’s and blacks' rights, and their fight to gain those rights. We chose this subject for many reasons, but mainly because we had not yet spent much time on this topic, and we all wanted to learn more about it. Since this is such a general topic, narrowing it down was difficult. In the end we decided to compare the different ways blacks and women fought for their rights, and the final compromise that gained them the rights they needed and deserved. To get us started, we read one book as a group. Then, we split into two groups: two of us studying and researching about women, and the other two focusing on blacks’ rights and civil rights. I read a little bit of both. Along the way, we all shared important facts that we learned, and we discussed many different issues pertaining to these topics. I learned about the Montgomery bus boycott from a book that was written by Rosa Parks, which I chose because of the primary source quality. I read that when a black man or woman was getting on a bus, they weren’t even allowed to pass through the section of a bus that was designated for white people, let alone sit there. Because of this, you would have to get on the bus in the front, pay for your ride, leave the bus, and then enter through a side door in the bus toward the back. I also learned a key component of the bus boycott, Rosa Parks, was not in the white section of the bus. I had always thought she had been arrested for sitting in the front of the bus, but she was actually sitting in the very front of the designated section for blacks. When a white passenger got on, the front of the bus was full. Rosa Parks refused to move back when asked to give up her seat to the white man. I thought this was very important, because it emphasized how unfairly blacks were treated. I learned about women's rights from the book __The Fight For Women’s Right to Vote__, which was very informational and provided me with many primary sources. I read about many of the different groups that were formed, such as the National Woman’s Loyal League, the American Equal Rights Association, and the National Woman Suffrage Association. I studied Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and their very important role in the fight for women’s rights. Anthony helped with the Underground Railroad, serving a dual role as a champion for women's rights and civil rights. Stanton wrote a Women’s Bible. Anthony and Stanton helped rally the women of Wyoming (1896) and Utah. These were the first two states to grant women their voting rights. The fight for equal rights for women and blacks relates to the Conflict and Compromise topic because inequality was a major conflict that needed to be solved, and if a compromise had not been found, women, who make up half of the population of our world, and blacks, whose population is growing rapidly in the United States, would still be treated wrongly today. I think a special thanks is needed and deserved by the many people who made an incredible difference in our society.