Black women do a lot of heavy lifting in American society. In the face of racism and gender discrimination, Black women have been agents of change for more than a century, often leading the charge for civil rights and Black self-determination as they’ve pushed back against white supremacy in its various insidious forms. From the pan-Africanist Amy Ashwood Garvey agitating for the rights of Black people in the 1920s to Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott in the 1950s to the present-day founders of Black Lives Matter and the movement to defund police, Black women have stepped up over and over again.
Jamila Woods is clearly aware of that history. It informs the Chicago singer and poet’s song “Blk Girl Soldier,” from Woods’ 2016 album “Heavn.” At once wrenching and hopeful, with a strong beat and layers of vocals, the song draws parallels between past and present as Woods contrasts the adversity and heartache that Black women have confronted with a quiet, defiant optimism centered on the girls and young women who are growing into leadership roles of their own.
“See she’s telepathic / Call it Black girl magic,” Woods sings on the refrain. “Yeah she scares the government / Déjà vu of Tubman.” Later in the song, she lists off a string of Civil Rights pioneers she calls freedom fighters, including Parks, Sojourner Truth and Ella Baker.
Though Woods wrote the song before the watershed election in 2016, it’s just as topical now as it was then — if not more so. In the protests against the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, or the shooting of Jacob Blake by police in Kenosha, Wis., women have been among the most outspoken. In the words of Blake’s sister, Letetra Wideman, “So many people have reached out to me, telling me they’re sorry that this happened to my family. Well, don’t be sorry, because this has been happening to my family for a long time, longer than I can account for.”
She continued, “It happened to Emmett Till. Emmett Till is my family. Philando. Mike Brown. Sandra. This has been happening to my family, and I’ve shed tears for every single one of these people that it’s happened to. This is nothing new. I’m not sad. I’m not sorry. I’m angry, and I’m tired.”
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