00:00Disrupting runs through black women's veins like life's blood. Y'all know y'all
00:04would all be lost without black women, right? Or at least just really, really sad.
00:10The black woman's impact on America, on history, and to be honest, on the world,
00:14is more than enough to be celebrated. Somebody give me a glass. Cheers to the
00:19black women disruptors, then and now, who led and lead unapologetically and
00:24powerfully.
00:28America is cute and all, but since it became a thing, it's needed to change. In
00:33order to affect change, you've got to disrupt. In order to dismantle, you've got
00:38to disrupt. In order to be a black woman, you've got to disrupt. Black women have
00:44been disrupting and shaking the tables where there are no seats for us since
00:48forever. Disruption is a black woman's love language. Let's get into the goddess
00:52that is Madame Tinubu, a pioneer of black wealth. Tinubu was a
00:57political activist and economic powerhouse who gained most of her finances
01:01from marrying well, but also trading tobacco, salt, and slaves. Yes, I said
01:07slaves, but it wasn't slavery slavery. Let me over explain. Slavery was common in the
01:12West African society Tinubu grew up in, but not the horrific chattel slavery system
01:17popularized by colonizers. During the 1800s, slaves in Africa were treated as human
01:22beings and had rights. African slavery served as a way for people to pay off debts, pay for
01:27a crime committed, or to pay for losing a war. Slavery wasn't a lifelong punishment for
01:32being black. It wasn't even based on skin color. African slaves worked in everything from domestic
01:38labor to government official gigs. According to Dr. John Heinrich Clark, Madame Tinubu wasn't
01:43even aware of the inhumane mess Europeans made slavery into, and once she found out, she rebelled.
01:50She made it her duty to stop Africans from selling fellow Africans to Europeans. Madame Tinubu's
01:57disruption succeeded in getting many African kings to outlaw slavery. She was eventually banished
02:02from Lagos for challenging the British council, Benjamin Campbell, but she still managed to stay
02:07a true boss trader. Tinubu Square in Lagos is named after her and still to this day upholds
02:13the legacy of her success. Another disruptor worth celebrating is Kathy Williams, a black woman who,
02:20like many black women, refused barriers. Kathy is the only documented black woman to serve in the U.S.
02:26Army in the 1800s. Her mother was a slave and her father was a free man. Before the voluntary enlistment
02:31at just 17 years old, Kathy served as an army cook and washerwoman. I'm tired and I'm only just
02:37saying the things this teenager did. You see, back in 1861, black folks were still considered
02:42three-fifths of a human. But when the Union occupied Jefferson City, Missouri, slaves were needed to
02:47support the military. And Kathy wasn't feeling any of those restrictions. And so five years later,
02:53she decided to pose as a man and enlist in the U.S. regular army using a fake name, William Kathy.
02:59Kathy's determination to serve a country that deemed her and all people with melanin like hers as less than
03:05is a testament to the duality most black people face in America. How do black people protect and
03:10love a country that hates us so much? You've heard of the Little Rock Nine, right? This is the group of
03:16black students who enrolled at a formerly all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957.
03:21These students acted as test subjects for integration. Well, this black woman disrupter,
03:27Daisy Bates, was the civil rights activist who helped the Little Rock Nine attend a so-called
03:33integrated school. After segregation was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1954,
03:38Daisy opened her home to the students and created a hub for them to face the battle of integration.
03:43Despite the apparent danger, Bates helped students enroll in all-white schools and provided support
03:49and guidance to those history-making students. Daisy Bates risked her life disrupting the racism that
03:53kept black students from the privilege of a good education. A good education that didn't include black
03:58history or accurate American history, but I digress. Ever heard of paramour rights? This was an unwritten
04:04law of the antebellum South that allowed white men the right to use any black woman they wanted for sex.
04:13This was the kind of law left over from slavery. In the 1950s, black women still had to deal with this
04:19disgusting use of privilege. Even wealthy married black women, but Ruby McCollum chose not to. She chose to
04:26create change. Ruby McCollum disrupted the system and is credited with being the first black woman to
04:32testify against a white man's rape and sexual abuse, as well as the paternity of the child born of said
04:38rape. McCollum murdered Dr. C. Leroy Adams, a white man who had been raping her for years. It was said that
04:45at the time of Dr. Adams's murder, Ruby was carrying his second child. Ruby's actions brought major attention to
04:51the antiquated paramour rights. Given America's racist history, it's shocking that they didn't
04:56lynch Ruby on site. They wanted to give her the electric chair, but due to technicalities,
05:02she was granted a retrial and she was subsequently committed to a psychiatric hospital. Because if
05:07you're raped by a white man, clearly you should be committed. These black women are just a few of the
05:13disruptors of history that we celebrate. These are the women who have risked their lives for the slightest
05:18chance that we could all be equal, even while having zero evidence that it could ever happen.
05:24I told you disrupting runs through black women's veins, so this list of these powerful women goes
05:30long. Stay tuned for more black women disruptors on the next episode of The Overexplainer, like Marsha
05:35P. Johnson, Ida B. Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Tarana Burke. I'm Danielle Young and this is The Overexplainer.
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