I speak for the colored women of the South, because it is there that the millions of blacks in this country have watered the soil with blood and tears, and it is there too that the colored woman of America has made her characteristic history and there her destiny is evolving.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the struggles and contributions of Black women in the South as vital to American history.
In this quote, Anna Julia Cooper speaks to the profound experiences of Black women in the Southern United States, highlighting their sacrifices and the pivotal role they have played in shaping the nation's history. By acknowledging the 'blood and tears' that have watered the soil, she points to the deep-rooted struggles against oppression, while also asserting that their history is significant and their future is still being forged through resilience and strength.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech addressing the importance of recognizing the contributions of marginalized communities in history.
It is not the intelligent woman v. the ignorant woman; nor the white woman v. the black, the brown, and the red, it is not even the cause of woman v. man. Nay, tis woman's strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice.
Let woman's claim be as broad in the concrete as the abstract. We take our stand on the solidarity of humanity, the oneness of life, and the unnaturalness and injustice of all special favoritism, whether of sex, race, country, or condition. If one link of the chain is broken, the chain is broken.
Bullies are always cowards at heart and may be credited with a pretty safe instinct in scenting their prey.
I constantly felt (as I suppose many an ambitious girl has felt) a thumping from within unanswered by any beckoning from without.
The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class - it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.
Peace produced by suppression is neither natural nor desirable.
I think one of the great disasters (in military history) is the way that the Second World War has become the defining reference point for every crisis and every conflict.
If the history of England be ever written by one who has the knowledge and the courage,-and both qualities are equally requisite for the undertaking, - the world will be more astonished than when reading the Roman annals by Niebuhr.
Of the twenty or so civilizations known to modern Western historians, all except our own appear to be dead or moribund, and, when we diagnose each case... we invariably find that the cause of death has been either War or Class or some combination of the two.
I think that often in the United States we're very blind to the ways that history lives in the present.
Some of the most moving experiences I've had are just in black churches in the South, during the Civil Rights Movement, where people were getting beaten, killed, really struggling for the most elementary rights.
I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood.
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