Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Historical Imagination and Fault Lines in the Electorate
- Part 1 Aggressive and Subordinate Masculinities
- Part 2 Feminist Predecessors
- Part 3 Baking Cookies and Grabbing Pussies: Misogyny and Sexual Politics
- Part 4 Election Day: Rewriting Past and Future
- Part 5 The Future Is Female (?): Critical Reflections and Feminist Futures
- Epilogue: Public Memory, White Supremacy, and Reproductive Justice in the Trump Era
- Chronology
- List of Contributors
- Gender and Race in American History
22 - “When They Go Low, We Go High”: African American Women Torchbearers for Democracy and the 2016 Democratic National Convention
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 June 2021
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Historical Imagination and Fault Lines in the Electorate
- Part 1 Aggressive and Subordinate Masculinities
- Part 2 Feminist Predecessors
- Part 3 Baking Cookies and Grabbing Pussies: Misogyny and Sexual Politics
- Part 4 Election Day: Rewriting Past and Future
- Part 5 The Future Is Female (?): Critical Reflections and Feminist Futures
- Epilogue: Public Memory, White Supremacy, and Reproductive Justice in the Trump Era
- Chronology
- List of Contributors
- Gender and Race in American History
Summary
We are the backbones of our churches, organizations, communities, and political party. We are the “willing workers.” We are the Mothers of the Movement. We are the group with the highest level of voter participation of any demographic group in America. We are the enthusiastic delegates and community leaders waving placards and chanting “Yes we can!” on the floor of Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center.
—Ginger McNight-Chavers, African American authorAmong the many messages the 2016 presidential election cycle sent, one remains abundantly clear. At the end of the day, the most qualified presidential candidate in history could still lose to a man who through word and deed is unapologetic about making America hate again. These misogynistic messages were not lost on Black women who have spent a lifetime defending their names and bodies against similar attacks. As public figures, delegates, and voters, Black women supported Hillary Clinton because, of the two major candidates, they believed she was the only one to push forward progressive change on jobs, health care, and education—issues important not only to Black women, but to all Americans. By crafting a message of unity, mutual respect, and optimism during the 2016 Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Philadelphia, African American women joined their foremothers whose patriotism and understanding of American democratic ideals began long before they formally earned the right to vote.
Through examining the contributions and the message of Black women organizers for the Clinton-Kaine campaign during the fortyseventh Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia July 25–28, 2016, this chapter explores how Black women's stand “with her” was an outgrowth of their lifelong commitment to race, gender, and classbased equality. It will also discuss why Clinton's campaign message at the 2016 DNC—one of hope, compassion, and inclusion—remains important postelection, and why “going high” and refusing to normalize bigotry allows us to find common ground, work together, and move our nation forward.
On July 25, 2016, Stephanie Rawlings Blake called to order the Democrats’ forty-seventh national convention. She replaced Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who resigned from her position at the Democratic National Committee following the release of nearly 20,000 emails from a WikiLeaks hack that showed an attempt to derail Senator Bernie Sanders from becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Nasty Women and Bad HombresGender and Race in the 2016 US Presidential Election, pp. 297 - 310Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2018