Hey Virgo, welcome back to the channel. Hope you had a lovely weekend. If you're new, welcome. This is Kelly from House of Virgo. Please smash that like button and subscribe if you enjoy the reading. And keep in mind, this is a general reading. Some messages may or may not be for you. This is a channel for Virgos, Sunbeam Rising or Venus, but all signs are welcome. All right Virgos, let's get into your Sunday reading Sunday reading going forward in the month of May. Already you have coffee cup, meeting and conversing, savoring the moment, feeling uplifted and friendship. Okay, let's see what else is going on. All right, so heartbroken and a photograph. Okay, interesting, heartbroken, deeply hurt, sad separation, breakup, feeling lost, grieving morning, and looking at your photos, missing you, nostalgia, making new memories. So, hmm, well, Virgo, this is kind of self-explanatory. It looks like someone who's very heartbroken. They've been looking at your photos or pictures of you or having memories of you, missing you, feeling very nostalgic. Somebody's feeling lost without you here and would like to have coffee with you or sit down and talk. Maybe to try to have a friendship or something along those lines. Okay, Virgo, let's see. Now that doesn't have to be a romantic relationship. I know some of you are in that place where you're not trying to get back into a past thing. So for some of you, this could be a friend or a family member, but it is a love reading, so take it as it resonates. Okay, let's take a look and see. What's going on with someone here who is really feeling nostalgic about you? They can't see you. Okay, it could be an Aries, it could be an Aquarius. Okay. Well, this does not go together, honestly. The emperor is someone who is very stable, structured, someone who is very mature, full of wisdom, quite wise, and it is out of character for the emperor to be careless and take some kind of risk here, but look at all the red here on the robe that he's wearing. This is someone who is really, a lot of passion, but it looks to me like, excuse me, it looks to me like there's somebody here who is gonna be, I guess I'm gonna say acting out of character here to do something, take some kind of risk here to connect with you, okay? This is not something that I feel like this particular person would normally do. The emperor never takes any kind of risks, okay? Unless they are kind of pre-planned, but then it wouldn't be a risk with it. This is spontaneity in a lot of ways, so this person, this emperor, is taking a huge chance here, wants to have some kind of beginning, or a new beginning with you, is feeling really hopeful, and once it feels like start over, have a restart with you, okay? For some of you, this could be a father, could be a father of your children, or a parent, or a co-, like another parent, parent of your children. For some, this could be an older sibling, someone who's very mature and wise, it could be a military, or in some type of law enforcement of some sort, they could also just be someone who is much older than you, or close to your age, okay? Very mature, like I said, the emperor is very strategic, plans things out, you know? Emperor doesn't jump the gun with anything here, but I feel like this emperor is really heartbroken, and is really missing you. Let me see. And let me think it about also the times that you guys would sit and have coffee together, but definitely wants to meet up, okay? And wants to talk. Now let's see, what do they want to talk about with Virgo? This is person. Ooh, okay. So the first thing I'm hearing is the emperor is, you know, the conversation or they want to talk, and I feel like what they want to say is, I know I need to make these changes, I know that I need to make this transition, do something different here, either relocate or move, or I'm going to be relocating or moving, or coming your way. Let me see here. What else does this emperor want to say to Virgo? There may be just a conversation about them moving or relocating, which I'm not really sure, but a lot of it has to do with making some kind of transition and change in their life. Okay, what else? Okay, wow. All right, so this emperor is like really remorseful. Also, there's remorse and regret for not making some kind of change. Sorry about the lighting. It's like, not so great lighting, but really regretful remorseful about not making the necessary change to further a relationship, but also regretful and feeling a sense of loss and remorse about coming in and out of your life or chasing after the lustful desire with you, okay? This knight of wands, this feels like this was their behavior with you, which was also out of character for them. I do feel like this person was like tremendously on fire for you, Virgo, definitely, but I don't know if this, it's not like the emperor to not be in a committed kind of relationship, you know? But I do feel like there was some part of this person, this emperor's behavior that was very childish, or child, well, not childlike, very immature, you know? Maybe in all other areas of their life, they may have presented as someone who is older or someone who is mature and wise, but their behavior seems to me like they were acting like they were still 20-year-old or an 18-year-old, lustful and coming in and out of your life or just someone who was dating like a wild person, like very crazy, you know? And they're mental, it was a lot of the mental stuff because I feel like they're going into the Six of Swords, which is making this transition and change coming from the Five of Swords, who was someone that might've been very like, all right, so I don't know if they were actually abusive, but I feel like the way they were treating their relationships for their age, like for example, if they were someone here in their 40s or 50s or 60s and all up, still acting like an 18-year-old in their relationships, which, you know, they think this emperor, this feels like I'm growing up, like I know, I feel like their thought process is, I know I need to make this change here with Virgo because of an act and a fool, okay. Okay, Virgo, so let me see. What else can you tell Virgo about this emperor? And just remember, it's masculine or feminine energy, okay? So, you know, twist it around if you need to. Let me see, what else is going on here with this person? Okay, the hermit in the reverse. This person, the emperor, gosh, Virgo, this person is like, can't let go of the past. When it comes to you, you being part of their past, this person drives forward in their vehicle, but they look through, they've been looking through and they continuously look through the rear view mirror. I feel like this person cannot seem to let go and move on with their life, with the world in the reverse. They're stuck. This is unfinished lessons or unfinished business with you. Oh, Virgo, they have some things they wanna talk about. They have some things that they need to say to you. I feel like with the hermit in reverse, this person is in isolation. They feel lonely. They keep repeating this same past mistakes. They're stuck. These are both cards about being stuck. Stuck on you, but stuck in the past. This person is missing you like crazy, Virgo. Okay, so I do feel like they're gonna come forward. Maybe a call, a text or something along those lines tell you that they would, or at least ask you if you guys can talk. They wanna tell you they're making changes here.  I don't know, Virgo, your situation. So I don't know if it's too soon or if a lot of time has passed and this person comes forward in May and you're willing to hear them out. I am gonna tell you that I was asking as I was shuffling on it to see your energy and you have this seven of pentacles. So you're definitely, I feel like when you hear from this person, your energy is going to be contemplation or whether or not you wanna give it one last try. You've invested a lot here, Virgo, it looks like. Look at all those pentacles. You've invested a lot. A lot of time, you've put a lot of energy and you've kept piling things up in this relationship, trying to build something here with someone. And I don't know, Virgo, do you have one last coin left? One last thing to give. I feel maybe you do, maybe you don't. But the question, the real question is here, will you? And I see you kinda like looking at all you've invested, knowing that you might have one last hurrah in you with this, but you also might be looking at all you've invested and just saying, no, you might not. So let's see what else is going on with you here, Virgo. What's Virgo gonna do? I mean, there's this, definitely the seven of pentacles is a card about, you know, you've put in a lot of hard work and you've, the rewards have been delayed all the time for some of you, or you just, it was like, it took too long for you to get anything back or to see any results or reciprocity. So you're in contemplation here, Virgo.  Virgo, you're, for some of you, you're gonna do a lot of thinking, a lot of thinking about this, a lot of contemplation. You're definitely in your element when it comes to this person. Okay, I've got the start. So that is hope and renewal. A lot of contemplation about, you know, can this work? Can we renew? Can there be healing? Should I or is it just done? Virgo, I can't tell you what you're gonna do because I don't see you doing anything. I see you contemplating it, thinking about the offer. I see you, you know, realizing that you may have hit rock bottom with this situation and now you're trying to heal and you may not wanna go back down that road, but also see you saying to yourself, but on the other hand, you know, things that did end and, you know, maybe there's a chance, you know, look at all the yellow, the clearing of the dark cloud on the horizon after everything ending. Maybe there's a chance to start afresh and have a new beginning. So I do kind of feel Virgo, like you're not in a yes. There's no absolutes with you. You're not in a yes and you're not in a no. You're in a kind of maybe. And what I say by maybe is it's not even so much if you wanna start the relationship over for some of you. It's if you wanna return the call or if you want to meet for coffee or just meet to talk or talk on the phone about things. You know, I don't know Virgo. You know, I just see you like really kind of trying to be strategic and see all the moves ahead. Like what is this worth it? Is it worth it to me to go down this road again? Yeah. And I don't think, I mean, for anyone who's cross-watching about the Virgo, I think Virgo's in the right place and has every right to be able to determine for themselves if this is what's in their best interest. Just because cross-watcher it's in your best interest doesn't mean it's in Virgo's. So Virgo is definitely going to be taking some time to sort it out in their heart and in their mind. Okay. So Virgo, I feel like for you, yeah. Look at you. Virgo, I mean seriously. This is kind of like, you know, somewhere over the rainbow. It's like, you're just standing there like, I don't know. Do I put my, this is a card of someone who basically puts their ships out into the water and then waits to see what the return is going to be. I feel Virgo, a lot of it is about you have been waiting and waiting and waiting and some of you may have just decided that it was over and you just wanted to heal. But of course, it seems to me like if you have just turned your back on the relationship and lost hope for the relationship, grieved the hopes that you had and turned your back to look and see what else might be out there. That's what I feel like, how the cycle is playing out that in your time of turning your back on someone here has given this person space and time to sort things out for themselves. And what they're finding out here, what it looks like is that they're isolated, they're lonely and they can't let you go. And they don't want to let you go and they want to try to make something work. What you do with that Virgo, of course, like I always say is up to you. Let's try and see what this person feels for Virgo. What are their feelings about Virgo? Okay, wow, the magician and temperance.  Just hearing something like you're magical.  They also feel like you bring them peace. You bring them a sense of peace and calm and that you've been very patient with them.  They see, they're very inspired by you is what I feel, like you inspire them. And I don't know, I guess this is what they're coming to terms with about who you are, okay?  I don't know if you did or not. Maybe you didn't walk away easily, but that you just kind of like took your ball and went home. Even the moon is kind of looking at you like, what the heck's Virgo doing? Like it's a little bit of a surprise. And I feel like this person kind of feels that way about you like, wow, they're actually very impressed that you were able to love yourself more than you love them. Hmm, Virgo, maybe I don't know, did you? Well, it doesn't matter. I just feel like how they feel about, oh my gosh, yeah, Virgo. I mean, they see you looking good, maybe you got a new car, they're looking to see you're beautiful, like you're looking good in your car, maybe you bought a brand new car. I feel like this person sees you as just being completely financially independent and capable of, they see that you've changed. That's also what I'm hearing, that you took some action in your life here and you changed for the better. You got yourself in a really good place and they're just unbelievably impressed. Also kind of, I don't wanna say like they're upset that you don't need them. They're kind of like, wow, I don't know if they saw it, maybe you couldn't do that or you wouldn't be able to do that, but it looks like maybe you got in your car and you left, they see that also, that you just went and took care of yourself. How do you feel about this person, Virgo? Okay, huh, well, let's see, six and one. So you think this person is popular or well-known or well-liked. You see that, and that they are, okay. You see that they travel a lot. How you feel about them, Virgo, it looks to me like you have feelings for this person. Some cupids, arrows, kind of crush things, very passionate about them. You know, how you feel about someone, I will say doesn't really change with whether or not the relationship is going to work. I think feelings are just feelings. And I feel like you feel like this person either requires a lot of attention or you feel like they love bomb you in order to gain attention from you. Let me see, this is interesting reading, okay. Yeah, Virgo, I don't know, I don't know how to take this, but I'm just gonna give you the message. I feel like you feel this person is an opportunist that they give to get, they give a lot in order to feel like they're worthy. It's almost transactional. But I also feel like you think this relationship or this person had a lot of potential for growth and positive good vibes, and it was very transforming. You feel like this person may have transformed your life in some way, okay. Even if it was negative, you know, negative or positive. They definitely, I feel like, Virgo, you feel like this person definitely left an impact on you, and that impact may have been lessons learned, for sure, but yeah, this is kinda, okay. Virgo, I have to tell you, like, there's still a lot of potential here with this relationship. That's the message I'm getting. There's potential for growth here. Now we have the Queen of Cups, so that could be a Cancer Scorpio Pisces. We also had the King of Pentacles, so it could also be a Virgo Taurus Capricorn. Lot of potential, but you know, Virgo, the Ace Energy, the Aces just kinda gives me this vibe, like, always a potential, and it just maybe didn't go any further than that.  If it had the potential, which it does, to go the distance till you're in your 80s, I mean, obviously it didn't because it didn't go that far because you're here listening, right? So what kept this relate? Well, I have to say, like, what kept the relationship from going forward on this person's part was a lack of maturity. Really, somebody who was older or mature in age or physicality, but acted like someone who was, you know, like a frat boy or a frat girl, party boy, party girl. What about you, Virgo? What about you? Tell Virgo more about Virgo. Okay, for you, Virgo, I feel like because of that behavior, you kept yourself guarded, you know? I feel like you just didn't open up to this person. Maybe you didn't feel safe with them or you just didn't trust. You wanted a long-term relationship with this person because that's what that card represents. Long-term commitment, long-term security, but you also, I don't know, I just get a sense that you didn't feel like because of that night of wands energy, that they really wanted more with you rather than maybe than just the physical. Okay. But you knew that this person had something in them that was favorable to you. You definitely did. And I feel like at some point, you might've felt very lucky to know them.  You know, having that physical passion for someone is not a bad thing, but the night of wands, the night of wands is not a card that comes in and stays. They're often like going from port to port. The night of wands is someone who's chasing after their fiery, lusty desires, okay? And it feels to me like that's the priority that this person had on the relationship and wasn't willing to go the distance or give more. Potential was always there, but this person needed to grow up. That's really what I feel like and I feel like it was most favorable for you to protect yourself while communicating or staying involved with this person. And I feel like I don't know exactly how it ended, but I feel like somewhere along the line, it may have or it may come to that now and then this person kind of shows back up in May knowing, you know, even towards the end of May, realizing that they need to make changes here. And yep, there's your sign. They needed to or they need to make changes here in order to have something with you because Virgo, I feel like somewhere along the lines, like I said, you come into May if you're not there already where you don't hate this person, but I feel like you're just loving yourself more than you're loving them. And that's very attractive. Your self respect makes you more romantically attractive. Okay, yeah, there's passion. Okay, allow your heart and soul to sing with joy because there's definitely a lot of passion here. Let me see. But as I always say, passion is not sustainable long-term. There has to be more than just the passions. Yeah, passion and playfulness, a good aspect of the relationship, Virgo, definitely feel like that energy was there between the two of you, but I don't know, it just kind of feels Virgo, like you were a bit more mature than this person. Not that you didn't like the passion and the playfulness between you, but it feels more like, yeah, you guys had those kid vibes together a little bit. You know, the playfulness aspect, but that's fun. But maybe you wanted more from this relationship, Virgo, going forward, you wanted more. And I don't feel like this person was able to give that and you probably left and said, that's okay, I'm out. It was fun, we had fun together, the playfulness, the passion, acting like kids. But this was a person for you. I really just feel like you guys were different places in your life, maybe, maybe maturity-wise or something along those lines. Okay, you know, I just realized that Sunday is supposed to be a single tree. And I just completely didn't do it. Okay, that's fine. So let's get into, let me say, what is the hidden truth? I wanna see the hidden truth. This person, they're feelings, you came closer than anyone. I lost myself there for a little while. I'm afraid to contact you because I know that I crossed the line with you. Okay, so they get some fear about reaching out. Why? Because you might reject them. I don't know if you will or not. I think you might just say, or if you do respond, if you wish to, and just tell them, well, I'll have to think about it. But they look for you everywhere, like I said. I mean, they're looking for you. They're looking at you. They're looking at anything that you've shared with them and it keepsakes that they have from you. But I do feel like they're kinda looking for you. They're looking for you everywhere. I don't know, like a loss, like what, Virgo's a lost puppy. Virgo's not lost. Virgo's fine. Let me see. I mean, yeah, my life is not as together as it seems.  I don't know, did it just not fit? Okay, I replay our conversations over and over.   I just feel like they're kind of isolated. They might be trying to get themselves less isolated with friends and family or whomever, maybe dating, but it doesn't feel like, I don't know, you're on their mind. So if things were going great, this wouldn't be happening. Maybe it's just not time and because they haven't met someone yet, they're still trying to work on things with you, that's possible and that could be a little bit of a reason why you may not be rushing back into this because they're, you know, I mean, does a person have to show up with the bloody stump?  So, you know, if you don't know what that means, everyone in the chat will tell you, but yeah, they got to be willing to come in and give some kind of effort, you know. Yeah, Virgo, it kind of feels to me like you're not, I don't know, you're not hymn and hawn, but you definitely feel to me like you're undecided or some of you might just be completely no and some of you might be completely yes, but yeah, you're definitely like, I'm not rushing into anything here, going slow. And that is your message, Virgo. Okay, lean on your inner circle during this time. I really feel like, Virgo, when this person comes back up and wants to try to re-initiate the connection with you, your advice here is to connect with people that support you and that you feel are your confidence, that you can trust as far as not that you need someone's approval about what you should do with your own life, but there's something here about some people in your life who either can be objective in the situation if you need help trying to figure out how to handle something. Be careful with who you choose to tell your personal business to, Virgo. Whomever you share with your inner circle, make sure those people in your inner circle can give you an objective, straightforward point of view, not that they will project their own personal opinions from what's happened to them in their life, but people who can tell you, you have to do what's best for you, honor yourself, self-respect is really important. People who are going to tell you that be your best self if you feel like you are ready for this, make sure that you are going slow and you're not rushing into it. And not people who are going to tell you if that person block them, a lot of times people will give you bad advice because they haven't sorted out their own personal problems and they're telling you what they would do in their own situation and that's not for the benefit of you. That is for them, right? So who you're talking to, let it be someone who isn't emotionally attached to the situation and has sorted out their own problems. Like if you go to someone asking them for advice, relationship advice and the person you go to has been in like 10 relationships and they've all failed or they have never been in a relationship in their entire life. I mean, I don't know. I don't feel like you're gonna go to like the garbage guy outside and ask him for accounting help unless he works as an accountant and just does garbage on the side. I feel like make sure who you're seeking support from are from people who have been through it and they've gotten over hurdles and they know what comes next and stuff like that. I don't feel like you should be fighting to keep a relationship alive when the other person's just watching you do and all the fighting to keep it alive. I think it's okay to have a relationship where you guys have turbulence and you both fight together to save the relationship but if you feel like you're gonna have to fight to keep this like CPR in a dead horse every single day when that horse is just not coming back to breathe is a waste of time. So there's a lot of stuff, okay? Yeah, warning, don't dismiss any red flags, okay? And then it says leap of faith. It's safe to make the move you're considering, okay? But time alone in nature will help you recharge and addiction it's so crazy because of what's feeling this. You know, somebody could have an addiction or it'd be addictive personality or you know, I don't know what the situation is here but if that resonates for you that might be something for you to consider. If somebody has an addiction or they're getting help for it or they just addicted to you, you know or they just jones in because you're not giving them the supply. Like what is the situation really thoroughly and I feel like you're gonna do that with the Seven of Pentacles really thoroughly try to understand what's going on here because I don't really feel like Virgo you wanna just jump back into something with someone who is only coming back in because they have no access to you, you know? That's not your problem because when they had access to you how did they treat you? That's the question. You gotta see something here, you know?  Can we just talk? I know I need to make changes and stuff. Sometimes people break up and then they get back together too soon. It's a marathon, not a sprint for something to really work out. There's gotta be more than just, oh I miss you, okay I'll take you back because that generally just turns right, it cycles back into the same thing again and again and again. Okay Virgo, so let's get your Chinese signs and see what Chinese signs we could come up here, come up with here. Okay, year of the rabbit, year of the dragon, year of the monkey, year of the goat, goat again, year of the pig, pig again, year of the rooster, year of the tiger and the year of the dog. Now that could be you, that could be your person, could be both of you or neither, doesn't mean it's not your reading. Okay, I'm gonna just pull some charms and I'm gonna end your reading. Sorry, it's not super long. I just don't have the energy to go to a full hour. I hope you understand. I just, this retrograde, I don't know about you guys but it has been killing me, I've been sleeping like crazy. Needing a lot of rest, okay. So you do have, uh-oh, it fell and it disappeared. Wow, sorry about that. I found a tootsie roll down there, hmm. Okay, so what do you have here? You have the cross, it's a blessing. Well, that's a strong message. Maybe you've been doing a lot of praying or getting very spiritual. This is the cross of Christianity. So if that's something that has been a part of your life or something you're getting back into or reconnecting with God or spirit, well, this would be Jesus Christ. You know, whatever the situation, I feel like that should be your biggest person, the one you go to first about your situation, asking for answers and guidance for sure. If that's where you are in your life with that, you will be led in the proper direction with asking or praying about or meditating on, you know, some scripture or things in relation to the situation and in your love life, okay. Maybe you went to church today for the first time and if so, wow, wonderful for you. Some of you might be reading your Bible. So we also have, well, a stringed instrument, okay. So somebody might play a stringed instrument or be a musician or you're listening to some songs, okay. Music might help you as well. Some people listen to music to try to, you know, give them a sense of peace or give them maybe some uplifting music. Maybe you play in a band or a cover band or you're working on a song. Somebody also might be writing a song for you and they might want to meet up with you to give you the song or play it for you or send you. They might be sending you songs as well, okay. So here now you have an angel. So we have a cross and an angel, okay. We're getting very spiritual here. Maybe spiritual music you listen to. Maybe for some of you, this is all about connecting with your guardian angel as well and asking for guidance some of you live in a snowy area and you're making snow angels I just heard, okay.   Are they thinking of your bougie kitty? Let me try not to get candid here, okay. This is a Siamese cat for sure. I know you guys can't really see it. My lighting is crazy, but yeah, Siamese cat. Maybe somebody has a Siamese kitty. Siamese cat, okay. Or there's like a brooch that somebody wears. Has a cat, kitty cat brooch. Very interesting. All right you guys, I'm gonna leave your reading there. I think our 40 something minutes is good. So yeah, I'll be back here tomorrow to do your rest of your readings for the rest of this week. I hope you guys have a fantastic night and day and I will see you Monday evening. All right, take care.


I want to begin with a very brief quote by an individual who takes up some important space towards the, towards the end of the lecture. This is by former U.S. Representative Shirley Chisholm. And she says, the emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, it's a girl. The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, it's a girl. Now throughout the course, in an underlying sort of way, every now and again, we've been talking about, in a variety of different ways, gender dynamics in the American scene, whether it's the strange, intermarriage, interesting choice of words, of race and sex and gender when it comes to the figure of the black male rapist or the black male brute and white womanhood, vaunted womanhood, and certainly we've been hearing from our primary sources, especially a range of different women writers and thinkers and activists. Today I want to spend a lot of the lecture focusing on, this particular moment in the early 1970s, where you have a very modern articulation of a new black feminism.  I realize that this is a complicated area. There's a lot of strife, there's a lot of confusion. Well, the fact simply is that it is. And as this lecture is covering essentially the mid-1960s, up to the mid-1970s, as we get into the 1970s, there's no radical change in the idea of social complication. It's a period of profound unrest in the U.S. The economic euphoria of the 1960s, something I didn't mention, the economy was booming. I mean, this is part of the angry, the anger that you hear in Gil Scott Herron in his, in his spoken word performance, Whitey on the Moon. It's like we're spending all this money sitting, I mean, it's expensive to put a person on the moon, as it turns out. Yet in black America, we're not seeing any of this, this kind of benefit. So the 60s are a period of incredible economic prosperity for many parts of the United States. For many black urban dwellers though, it's something quite different. When you get into the 1970s though, the economic euphoria vanishes. And a new fiscal reality sets in that, that forces economists to think, to rethink old working models. You know, things are to act in a certain way, my goodness, they're not acting in a certain way. And they actually coined a phrase, a term for the new economic problems of the, mid and in the late 1970s, that phrase is stagflation. The stagnant economy, according to the models, means that you're not going to have inflation. In fact, you might have deflation. But you had a stagnant economy and inflation. And it's just something that just hadn't happened before. And it sort of defied a lot of logic, but you know, this is what happens when new logic models are proposed. So fiscally, the country is heading into a wreck. This is also a period of psychological trauma, as far as the mythological purity of America was concerned. The atrocities of war, and there's always atrocities, but now they're being brought home for the first time via the media's close involvement in the war, with the war in Vietnam. I mean, you have cameras, what do we now call them? Embedded, you know, journalists. You had cameras in the field, a video and film, and the images are coming back on the nightly news. Something that we don't see anymore, frankly, that has been shut down. And it was shut down because it was very effective at spreading dismay or anxiety or what the heck we are doing over in Vietnam. Why do our young men keep coming home in body bags? So with a heightened media presence, it means you can't hide the fact that America's overwhelming military power found itself almost irrelevant in the face of North Vietnamese determination. The war is not going well as you get into the late 60s and into the early 70s. You have a sitting president in the late 60s, LBJ, who declines to run for a second term in office. It's a shocking moment. He took over and JFK has assassinated one of the first elections and had a chance to run for a second, said no. The Republican Party, under Nixon, takes control with a pledge to the South. I mentioned in previous lecture that there's strong thermon that is going to ignore the civil rights gains of the preceding decade. Nixon runs in a law and order campaign. This actually, a few of you came to Kathleen Cleaver's presentation last night and she said something that's really quite striking and I've heard it from many different people and you'll hear it from me in a different way I suppose later on in this course, the time that remains, is that you look for those people like Kathleen Cleaver who were adults during Nixon's era.   And the country has shifted very far to the right, the arbitrary right in terms of being much more conservative politically, that from the standpoint of many different political projects, Nixon is sounding really quite progressive in many areas compared to, you know, it doesn't matter who's in the office, Republican or Democrat. Clinton was a conservative Republican and Obama was a moderate, excuse me, what did I say, conservative Democrat and Obama's a moderate Democrat and Nixon on many issues, they're on the same page or Nixon's a little bit more liberal. It's a weird kind of thing to say, but this is the record. In any event, Nixon's now in office running under a law and order campaign, having gotten to running underneath the law and order campaign. But he's not in the office that long when the country's growing skepticism about its elected officials intensifies, once it learns about the break-ins at the Watergate in the extent to which the cover-ups were orchestrated by the White House, by Nixon himself. It's actually funny, this is around, I was born in 1967 and I remember watching live TV and thinking, well I thought Nixon was the guy on the dime, I didn't realize he was a different president, but the guy that looked like the guy on the dime, I knew he was in trouble. I didn't know what he did and it was too much for my small brain to accommodate at the time, but my first political memory is of the impeachment hearings dealing with Richard Nixon. People were fixated on the TV, what is the Congress going to do? So growing out of this moment, we're talking here the early 1970s, the economy begins to tank, the military's humiliated, the political process becomes tainted at the highest levels and the country's innocence is lost. Now many African Americans felt for a very long time that the country's innocence had been lost long before the 1970s and black women in particular had an acute sense of disdain in the country's pronouncements about equality before the law and in the promise of the civil rights movement. Black women suffer from what they call double jeopardy, being black and being female. Citizenship twice denied. For too long freedom was equated with, as far as the African American community is concerned, was equated with black manhood and the freedom of blacks with the redemption of black masculinity. If we can help our brothers, then we'll all be free. Elaine Brown becomes the leader of the Black Panther Party in the early 1970s once the founding leadership was either jailed, kicked out, or in exile. Elaine Brown recalled an organizational meeting when she and other women were forced to wait to eat until the men were served food for which they all had contributed. The ethos of the time was that, quote, this is Elaine Brown speaking here, sisters do not challenge brothers.  So even in a vanguardist organization like the Black Panthers, a group that called for a political and economic reorientation in American life and values, good old fashioned sexism was alive and well. Sexism, of course, nothing new to the American scene. What was new was a rising articulation of modern feminism that was built upon the emotional power of the civil rights movement. I imagine you've heard it many times before that you look at the great changes in women's politics, Chicano, the Latino politics, Asian American politics, LGBTQ politics, they're growing out of the organizational skills really mastered by civil rights activists, women's movement being the most successful, the earliest sort of, quote, other movement building upon models of the civil rights movement with great success. In 1963, Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique, became a tremendously important book, and it was essentially about how to get white middle class women out of the home and into the workplace. Without diminishing the importance of the books, it's a landmark book. For black women, the book seemed sort of an argumentative standpoint largely irrelevant because black women had always been out of the home, in someone else's home actually, often as domestics, but they didn't have the leisure and the opportunity to be at home in a way that white middle class women did, it's from an economic standpoint. So, The Feminine Mystique is one of the first volleys that will become sort of modern feminist movement, and right at the very beginning, then black women are wondering, well, where does it, how does this book apply to my experience? A couple years later, in 1965, black women, in their sense of being ignored by major currents in American society are turned on its head in a weird way when they find themselves with the spotlight turned on them. Black women used to being ignored, and now the spotlight's on them. Only this time they're not being blamed, or only this time they're being blamed, excuse me, for black America's failures. At that moment, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, future senator, then part of the Department of Labor, published a report called The Negro Family, The Case for National Action.  Today, that was a tremendously important report, and it sets welfare policy standards for the next generation. I want to reduce the report to its simplest and most controversial essence. Although Moynihan lamented it, he said he felt that there was nothing else to do, but conclude that blacks were caught in a quote, tangle of pathology. It's an important phrase. This tangle, moreover, was a result of women-headed households in black America. To illustrate this logic, I'm going to quote from the text, and I want you to listen here for the very clear investment in the norm of patriarchy here, Moynihan writes, that the Negro American has survived at all as extraordinary. The lesser people might simply have died out, as indeed others have. That the Negro community has not only survived, but in this political generation has international affairs as a moderate, humane, and constructive national force is the highest testament to the healing powers of the democratic ideal and the creative vitality of the Negro people. But it may not be supposed that the Negro American community has not paid a fearful price for the incredible mistreatment to which it has been subjected over the past three centuries. In essence, the Negro community has been forced into a matriarchal structure, which because it is so out of line with the rest of the American society, seriously retards the progress of the group as a whole and imposes a crushing burden on the Negro male and in consequence on a great many Negro women as well. There is presumably no special place, no excuse me, no special reason why a society in which males are dominant in family relationships is to be preferred to matriarchal arrangement. However, it is clearly a disadvantage for a minority group to be operating on one principle while the great majority of the population and the one with the most advantages to begin with is operating on another. This is the present situation of the Negro. Ours is a society which presumes male leadership in private and public affairs. The arrangements of society facilitate such leadership and reward it. A subculture such as that of the Negro American in which this is not, in which this is not the pattern is placed at a distinct disadvantage. Here an earlier word of caution is should be repeated. There is much evidence that a considerable amount, there is much evidence that a considerable number of Negro families have managed to break out of the tangle of pathology and to establish themselves as stable, effective units living according to patterns of American society in general. This is one excerpt from a much larger study of course. And this is coming from an old fashioned Democrat, a great liberal in the American tradition. Lamenting the destruction of the black family pointing to the fact that it's matriarchal structure, that women headed households is the real reason behind blacks inability to have successful family units because it's so out of line with the national norm of male headed households. You know it's great that blacks are so in such strong backgrounds they've been able to survive so much degradation. But we've got to find a way to solve this problem. It is a call for national action, which is a subtitle, the case for national action is a subtitle of the report. We need to solve the problem of the structure of the black family. Black Americans are outraged by the report and it's claim of an almost organic dysfunctionalism. And this is not an anger that was sought to deny the very obvious reality of poverty in the black community. No one could deny that. And also this anger is not a direct manifestation of the failure of Johnson's great society and King's civil rights strategies to address abiding problems of poverty. People recognize the efforts that are being made in these regards. The anger is really a result of being considered a problem that America and especially white America had to solve. I mean, think of this moment. This is the moment we're talking about. Morninghands report percent of 65. Stokely Carmichael is talking about black power in 66. And while Stokely Carmichael and his fellow travelers are a minority in black America, they're still getting a lot of attention, far more attention than their actual numbers would suggest. And to suggest to hear then from an important figure in the federal government saying, you know, white Americans really have to solve this problem for black Americans. We need to find a solution. And sort of saying, you know, it's really too bad, we've also been part of the problem, but we really can't address that issue. Let's try to fix this black family. Just outraged. Black, black Americans. So according to Morninghand, blacks are a problem that white America had to resolve. Now you may or may not be surprised, as I've talked in this course about connections to events decades earlier and the way in which things don't change at times. You may not be surprised that W.E.B. Du Bois, having just passed away two years earlier, said as much the same thing in 1903 when he offered the following words in his landmark book, The Souls of Black Folk, and Du Bois said, between me and the other world, there is an ever-unasked question, unasked by some through feelings of delicacy, by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it, all nevertheless flutter around it. They approached me in a half-hesitant sort of way. I meet curiously or compassionately, and then instead of saying directly, how does it feel to be a problem? They say, I know an excellent colored man in my town, or do not these southern outrages make you, make your blood boil? At these I smile or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, how does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word. This is a different age, 1965. This is a different age than Du Bois' of 1903. And instead of silence, black women begin to be heard on these kinds of issues that Moynihan's raising. Now please note, I'm not saying they begin to speak up, they're beginning to be heard. In the wake of the Moynihan report, groups across the country, individuals in groups, galvanized into action. There's a huge amount of a scholarship published in the wake of the Moynihan report in response to the Moynihan report dealing with the sociology of the black family, sort of so-called black sociology. But on the activist front, people outraged by sort of the blinders on Daniel Patrick Moynihan's opinions or thoughts or analyses start forming groups of their own. And one of the key players in this process is a woman named Johnny Tillman, black woman who had been on welfare herself, who helped organize the National Welfare Rights Organization, the NWRO. Tillman, excuse me, becomes one of the galvanizing figures of the NWRO, I'm really one of its spokesperson. Tillman defined poverty as the defining element in the lives of black women. Through her leadership, the NWRO pursued a practical agenda that called for decent wages, access to education and job training, medical care for women and children, and children's daycare. They want decent wages, access to education, job training, medical care for women and children, children's daycare. And the NWRO also called for an end to abusive integrating practices of welfare case workers who would, for example, show up at a welfare recipient's home at midnight looking for evidence of other means of support. And most often, quote, other means of support, meant that an adult male was present. There was built into the structure of welfare policy at this era that suggestion you see in Moynihan's ideology that the norm should be patriarchal, headed, family structure, that if there was a man around, it became much harder for a person on welfare to be able to claim that welfare. Tillman made her dissatisfaction known in public rallies across the country. The title of one of her more frequent talks was, Welfare as a Woman's Issue. It's a piece that ran and will eventually run in Gloria Steinem's breakout publication, Ms., published in 1972. I want to read an excerpt from that essay, a version of which she gave in many different rallies across the country. Welfare as a Woman's Issue by Johnny Tillman.  In this country, if you're any one of those things, you count less as a human being. If you're all of those things, you don't count at all, except as a statistic. I am 45 years old. I've raised six children. There are millions of statistics like me. Some on welfare, some not. And some really poor, who don't even know they're entitled to welfare. Not all of them are black, not at all. In fact, the majority, about two-thirds of all the poor families in the country are white. Welfare is like a traffic accident. It can happen to anybody, but especially it happens to women. And that's why welfare is a woman's issue. For a lot of middle-class women in this country, women's liberation is a matter of concern. For women on welfare, it's a matter of survival. Survival. That's why we had to go on welfare, and that's why we can't get off welfare now. Not us women, not until we do something about liberating poor women in this country. Because up until now, we've been raised to expect to work all our lives for nothing.  Because we have to be almost totally responsible for our children. Because we are regarded by everybody as dependents. That's why we are on welfare. And that's why we stay on it. Welfare is the most prejudiced institution in this country, even more than marriage, which it tries to imitate. Let me explain that a little. Ninety-nine percent of welfare families are headed by women. There's no man around. In half the states, there can't be a man around because AFDC, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, says if there is an able-bodied man around, then you can't be on welfare.  Welfare is like a super-sexist marriage. You trade in a man for the man. But you can't divorce him if he treats you bad.  But in that case, he keeps the kids, not you. The man runs everything. In ordinary marriage, sex is supposed to be for your husband. On AFDC, you're not supposed to have any sex at all. You give up control of your own body. It's a condition of aid. You may even have to agree to get your tubes tied, so you can never have more children just to avoid being cut off welfare. The man, the welfare system, controls your money. He tells you what to buy, what not to buy, where to buy it, and how much things cost. If things, rent, for instance, really cost more than he says they do, it's just too bad for you. He's always right. That's why Governor Ronald Reagan can get away with slandering welfare recipients, calling them, quote, lazy parasites, pigs at the trough and such.  Sorry, I read that wrong.  If people have motivation, if people only want to work, they can. And they will be able to support themselves and their kids in decency. The truth is, the job doesn't necessarily mean an adequate income. There are some 10 million jobs that now pay less than the minimum wage. And if you're a woman, you've got the best chance of getting one. Why would a 45-year-old woman work all day in a laundry, ironing shirts at 90-some cents an hour? Because she knows that there's someplace lower she could be. She could be on welfare. Society needs women on welfare as examples to let every woman, factory workers and housewife workers alike, know what will happen if she lets up. If she's laid off, if she tries to go it alone without a man, I read that wrong as well. Society needs women on welfare as examples to let every woman, factory workers and housewife workers alike know what will happen if she lets up, if she's laid off, if she tries to go it alone without a man. So these ladies stay on their feet or on their knees, all their lies, instead of asking why they're only getting some 90-some cents an hour, instead of daring to fight and complain. Tillman carries this drumbeat with her, to public rallies but also to private meetings. When in 1968, she meets with Martin Luther King about welfare issues, she grows increasingly frustrated with King's interruptions and in her view evasions. She goes to King thinking, you know, here's a man who's really pledging himself to poverty reform or economic reform, addressing poverty and then realizes that she's running into a stone wall in many ways. And finally, Tillman says to King, you know Dr. King, if you don't know anything about these questions, you should say you don't know and then we could go on with the meeting. King was, like everybody is, I mean it's a meaningless phrase, a man of his time, you know, but his own notion of patriarchal order was certainly well in place. Now, Tillman and other NWRO activists linked welfare rights to civil rights, explaining that being on welfare was a necessity born of the economic system, not of women's moral failings. So where Moynihan in the so-called Moynihan report is talking about structures of degradation and such, it is being driven by a moral assessment of women's role in the Black family. And the NWRO takes out that moral assessment and looks at the structures of economic exploitation and lack of education and such. Now the NWRO represents one type of political thrust in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It's important that we not lose sight of this grassroots rallies and activism calling for structural changes when it comes to welfare, but it's also important to make note of a few different milestones in the world of politics. This is a detour that leads us to Shirley Chisholm. I spoke early about the fact in the Civil Rights Act became law. That is, this moment, a great excitement, but very quickly people understood it didn't address voting issues. And this was the real next, this was the next frontier. You'll also remember that when I talked about the Voting Rights Act becoming law. Of course, there was riots a few days later in Los Angeles, but looking ahead a few years towards the end of the 60s, I said you would see a radical change in the numbers of voters. The Voting Rights Act, for all of its flaws in implementation and enforcement, did bear witness to a radical shift in the number of blacks who are now able to get access to the ballot box. And you start seeing that change, or you start seeing a change based on the number of blacks who are voting. 1967 is a landmark moment in terms of voting behaviors. And it's actually only tangentially rated, related to the Voting Rights Act actually. The story unfolds in Cleveland. Carl Stokes, black man, was elected mayor of the city. He's been a local figure for some time, a member of the police force, very prominent certainly. He's not the first black mayor ever, but he's the first black mayor, first black elected mayor of a major city. Now what's critically important to think about in Stokes' case is that blacks are actually the minority of the population in Cleveland. Bless you. Stokes becomes really the first successful coalition politician at that level in the country's history. He runs on a strong law and order campaign that appealed to a real segment of the population, conservative and liberal certainly. You know, leans on his past record as a police officer. He appeals to the black community simply because here's a black man who's going to stand up and the assumption he's going to speak for us on our behalf. But he really pulls in liberal whites as well. And through a complicated sort of dance, Ford was a coalition, white and black voters becomes the mayor. His campaign is watched very closely and it becomes a model for other black morality campaigns across the country. You start seeing black mayors popping up. Gary and Deanna just around the bend in Los Angeles, California soon enough. You start seeing the beginnings of the era of the black mayor in an urban landscape. And as the voting right, the voting numbers start to skyrocket for African-Americans, you start seeing black elected offices in regions of the country they had not ever been elected, largely in the southeast. Two years after Carl Stokes was elected, the mayor of Cleveland, you actually have as a result of increasing number of blacks going to Congress, a new group formed called the Congressional Black Caucus. Still alive and very well today. Congressional Black Caucus, the CBC has formed. And essentially now we have a critical mass, still on the small side, but a critical mass of black elected officials, House of Representatives, and then one in the Senate at that time, who are going to come together on agendas that we think we share, on which we share common ground. Will they always be race agendas? You know, I guess that's a presumption, but it can be common ground on other issues. It will form like a political action group, essentially what the caucus is. So you have a rising number of people who are in holding positions of power in formal elected offices, and you have the continuation of grassroots activism on the ground. In 1972, as the snowballs rolling down the mountain, a number of activists and elected officials get together saying, you know, we've got a real moment of opportunity here. We're calling for change. There are groups like the NWRO, not just, that's not an all-black group. I should have made that clear. It's a multiracial group. But you have this group on the ground, other groups like that on the ground, small political action groups in cities across the country. You have black militants, certainly. You have still the black leaders of churches. That's been there for a long time. Now you have these black mayors and these black elected officials in the House of Representatives. Here's a moment where we need to take advantage of our collective experiences. African-Americans come together and try to forge a new voice, a new black political voice. So they call for a convention. The National Black Political Convention is held in 1972 in Gary, Indiana. It's a meeting of black radicals, nationalists, and mainstream politicians. And it has the convention theme of unity without uniformity. And this is now where I spend a couple of minutes reading excerpts from the platform and from Amiri Baraka's radical black poet from his poem called His Nation Time. That is rather an aggressive assertion of black militancy and black nationalism. And I read these two excerpts, trust me on this, where you have, you know, this, this, and Baraka is one of the organizers of this, of this meeting. You have this very ardent black militant voice, you know, with a poem laced with shotguns and racial epithets and challenges to religious orthodoxies that is nation time. It's nation time is really, you know, what this, he's calling for in the poem. And you have the host of the convention like Gary Hatcher, the mayor of, it's not Gary Hatcher, the mayor of, Mayor Hatcher of Gary, Indiana, Richard Hatcher, saying, look, we've got to find a way to bridge the differences because he's not going to stand on a platform of, and I'm paraphrasing from Baraka's poem, niggers get your guns. He's not going to stand on that platform. We don't want to lose this opportunity, this organizing opportunity and emphasizes we need to have unity and understand we cannot be uniform, harkening back to the organizing of the conference. Now, the National Black Political Convention, what does it leave us with? It leaves us with no clear message. We think back to the National Negro Congress some 40 year, 35, 36 years earlier, same kind of situation where the coalition of different kinds of black voices come together with an unclear result. But now these people are elected into office. The National Black Political Convention exposes the diversity of political opinions within black America. It does that. And a group grows out of it, the National Black Political Assembly. And some thought that the National Black Political Assembly, essentially like the Congressional Black Caucus, but now operating at all levels of political organization in the society, grassroots up to the House of Representatives, some thought that this was an incredible, going to be an incredible vehicle to create real change. And one of the people who thought is going to create change was Shirley Chisholm, representative from Brooklyn, and the first black woman to represent New York State in the U.S. Congress. Chisholm has just declared her candidacy for the presidency of the United States and looked to the activists involved in the Gary Convention, the National Black Political Convention, looked to the activists at the convention for their support. Chisholm's growing out of the tradition now of someone like Carl Stokes. He's a real coalition politician. She was, this is controversial at the time, she was a very public member of the National Organization for Women, a group that black feminists thought was just for white women. Something I'll get to a little bit later on, close out the lecture. So Shirley Chisholm has a whole bunch of support, it seems, from people like Gloria Stein, who published Johnny Tillman's Essay about Welfare. But then something funny happens, not funny haha, funny unfortunate, is that as Chisholm goes around the floor of the Gary Convention, as she starts seeking support from her white feminist friends, the cold hard reality of politics invaded. Black elected officials distance themselves immediately from Chisholm because they believed that her presidential campaign was an absolute long shot. And they wanted to align themselves with more likely Democratic contenders for the National Party's nomination. Crushing Blow comes from Chisholm when she overhears at another black political conference. These two officials, I guess she's just with an earshot.  So you have rising black political organizations in high formal politics, a connection it seems to the grassroots activism that you see in groups like the NWRO, Chisholm tapping into this moment, like this will be the moment we can really forge change in this country. And like someone, I mean, Chisholm wasn't running on a women's platform per se, she was running on liberal politics platform, but she was seen as unelectable by black elected officials and also by the women in groups like now. They cast their support to the more mainstream, quote, mainstream Democratic contenders. So surely Chisholm seems as a complete affirmation of this double jeopardy status of black women in the United States.  And Chisholm wasn't the only person to feel this way in 1973, a year after the National Black Political Convention. Group is formed called the National Black Feminist Organization, the NBFO. And it sets about to criticize the stereotypes of black women, criticize the country for caring more about black men. As long as the brothers are taking care, the sisters will be taking care of eventually. The NBFO activists took issue with the media for imposing standards of beauty that are purely Anglo-file. The NBFO addressed practical issues like the NWRO did, like child welfare, unemployment, et cetera. And the National Black Feminist Organization added in its ideology something that had really been solely the domain of white feminist movement to that point, namely abortion rights and the Equal Rights Amendment. It is an organization with an ideologically broad umbrella on feminist issues, broader in its opinion than the National Organization for Women. Now the NBFO perhaps predictably was met with a strong backlash. It was accused of hampering the black movement in air quotes.  It was accused of being man-hating, in part, in large part because it welcomed lesbians into its organization publicly. Now, although the NBFO collapses almost as quickly as it's formed, does not last long. It exposed a range of hot-button issues within the black community and inspired other groups to form, most famously, the Combahee River Collective. I want to turn quickly to the Combahee River Collective statement, the collective statement, and point some of these hot-button issues. Statement reads that we are collective of black feminists who have been meeting together since 1974, involved in the process of defining and clarifying our politics while doing political work within our own group and in coalition with other progressive organizations and movements.  It goes into the genesis of contemporary black feminism and then has three points of what we believe the problems in organizing black feminists and black feminist issues and projects. I'm excerpting here. What we believe, the statement says, although we are feminists and lesbians, we feel solidarity with progressive black men and do not advocate the fractionalization that white women who are separatists demand. We struggle together with black men against racism, while we also struggle with black men about sexism. We are socialists because we believe that work must be organized for the collective benefit of those who do the work and create the products and not for the profits of the bosses. We need to articulate the real-class situation of persons for whom racial and sexual oppression are significant determinants in their working economic lives. Calling on the recognition of problems in organizing black feminists, the Combahee River Collective says that the major source of difficulty in our political work is that we are trying to address a whole range of oppressions where it just possessed psychologically and on every other level and yet we feel the necessity to struggle to change the condition of all black women. If black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all subsistence of oppression in the notion of multiple forms of oppression weighing down on blackness and female womanhood. And it says in terms of black feminist issues and projects is one issue that is of major concern to us that we've begun to publicly address is racism in the white women's movement. I made reference to this earlier, Shirley Chisholm's sort of comfort, when I looked, wow, just completely drew a blank on a very basic word, controversial, on her controversial membership in the National Organization for Women. In the successful rise of the feminist movement, black women start telling stories of trying to affiliate with what are essentially white groups. And the stories start to tell rather stories of great frustration and they replicate themselves constantly.  So the Combahee River Collective, the National Black Feminist Organization before it as well, and people like Shirley Chisholm, all recognizing that there is something flawed even in women's rights organizations and it's the racial dynamic.  Shirley Chisholm was certainly frustrated but she's committed to change. In this era, on the political front, you see a reflection of that commitment to change where the number of black women who are elected officials skyrockets from 15% of the black elected officials are women in the late 60s to nearly 60% by the end of the 1970s. A humongous change of who's representing this constituency presumptively but not always representing a black constituency. Now as I did on Monday, I was talking about the incredible cultural power of the moment and the interesting narratives of misogyny and hypermasculinity you see in black exploitation films. This is also an era that you see the beginning of an incredible renaissance in black women's literature especially. The great author Tony Morrison appearing on the scene with the bluest eye in 1970. Alice Walker who would become most famous for writing colored... Haha, notice here. In my typing these notes I wrote colored people. The color purple. Just notice that big old typo. Anyway, Alice Walker, we published that book in 1982 but in the 70s she's doing an incredible amount of recovery work. For example, who here has heard of Zora Neale Hurston? I mean, pretty much everybody. None of your hands would have gone up prior to the early 1970s. And the hands are being raised now because of Alice Walker's essentially detective work. She makes it her mission, for example, to discover Zora Neale Hurston's grave, unmarried. Zora Neale Hurston had this incredible moment in the late 30s and 40s but disappears. She dies penniless. She's working as a maid. Her writing disappears. Alice Walker discovers it and makes an attempt, a concerted effort to bring her back into the literary conversation in American Letters. Does it quite successfully. And she's recognizing Alice Walker's in this recuperative work dealing with Zora Neale Hurston that there's a new voice, in Zora Neale Hurston's case an older voice, but a new way of listening to this voice. That's about black women who wanted to declare a political engagement on their own terms. Not men's, not black men's and not white women's. And Walker calls for a new term that would apply to black women in general, and that's womanist.  Walker, when asked to comment on the combination of events over the previous decades that opened up the possibilities for black women, she said, speaking of her characters, said, my women in the future will not burn themselves up. Now I am ready to look at women who have made the room larger for others to move in. I think one reason I never stay away from the Southern movement is because I realize how deeply political changes affect the choices and lifestyles of people. The movement of the 60s, black power, the Muslims, the Panthers, have changed the options of black people generally and of black women in particular. So that my women characters won't all end the way they have been, because black women now offer the varied live models of how it is possible to live. We have a new place to move and move they did. We will pick up discussion on next Monday. Thank you.