Week 14

The National Black Catholic Caucus offers this timeline of Black Catholic History in the United States.

Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old black mother, and sharecropper, was gang-raped by six white boys in 1944 Alabama. Common in Jim Crow South, few women spoke up in fear for their lives. Not Recy Taylor, who bravely identified her rapists. The NAACP sent its chief rape investigator Rosa Parks, who rallied support and triggered an unprecedented outcry for justice.

Our film exposes a legacy of physical abuse of black women and reveals Rosa Parks’ intimate role in Recy Taylor’s story. An attempted rape against Parks was but one inspiration for her ongoing work to find justice for countless women like Taylor. The 1955 bus boycott was an end result, not a beginning.

More and more women are now speaking up after rape. Our film tells the story of black women who spoke up when danger was greatest; it was their noble efforts to take back their bodies that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and movements that followed. The 2017 Global March by Women is linked to their courage. From sexual aggression on ‘40s southern streets to today’s college campuses and to the threatened right to choose, it is control of women’s bodies that powered the movement in Recy Taylor’s day and fuels our outrage today.

A documentary telling Ms. Taylor's story is now available on Amazon, Hulu, and other platforms. 

The subject of race can be very touchy. As finance executive Mellody Hobson says, it's a "conversational third rail." But, she says, that's exactly why we need to start talking about it. In this engaging, persuasive TED  talk, Hobson makes the case that speaking openly about race — and particularly about diversity in hiring -- makes for better businesses and a better society.

Looking for a film to watch?  Try  The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

The directorial debut of actor Chiwetel Ejiofor—who also stars in the film—follows a 13-year-old Malawian boy who teaches himself to build a windmill in order to save his village from starvation.

Perhaps you'd rather read: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Coates seems to understand that we can’t be hopeful if we can’t see what might need to change. This 155-page book — is written as a letter from the author to his son — because his love for his child ultimately shapes and focuses his honest depiction of what it means to be a black man in America.