Noting that Black women were integral in every civil rights movement, including suffrage and feminism, the president discussed his decision to highlight Black women as an effort to quiet the voices telling them they aren’t “good enough”.
Advertisement
The president allocated most of his pitch to minority women and called them “the foot soldiers” in the civil-rights movement. “Women strategized boycotts. Women organized marches”, Obama said in his keynote address. “Even if they weren’t allowed to run the civil rights organizations on paper, behind the scenes they were the thinkers and the doers making things happen each and every day, doing the work that no one else wanted to do”.
“We are going to have to close those economic gaps…We’ve got to do more than say…we’d put a woman on the ten dollar bill” Obama said.
Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday received a warm welcome at a breakfast for the Congressional Black Caucus’s Annual Legislative Conference, a positive sign for him as he mulls a presidential bid. “I want Michelle getting paid at some point”.
Special guests attending the dinner included presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Democratic Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.), Rev. Al Sharpton, Judge Greg Mathis and several other Congress members.
Black women are “one of the Democratic Party’s most loyal constituencies and consistently vote at higher rates in national elections than any other demographic group”, writes the news outlet.
Obama and Michelle wave to attendees at the CBCF’s 45th Annual Legislative Conference Phoenix Awards Dinner on September 19 after Obama delivered a speech centered on Black women.
He also swiped at conservatives who blamed him for animosity toward police officers.
“Like every parent, I can’t help to see the world increasingly through my daughters’ eyes”, Obama said.
“Our law enforcement officers do outstanding work in an incredibly hard and unsafe job”, he said during the Congressional Black Caucus awards dinner in Washington.
Posthumous honors are being given to Amelia Boynton Robinson, an organizer of the Bloody Sunday march to Montgomery, Alabama, in March 1965.
Advertisement
Boynton Robinson died late last month at age 104.
