Jacquelyn Howard Talks Stand With Black Women- WA, the Movement Championing for Dr. Claudine Gay and Empowering Unheard Voices
Watch the full interview below
Trae Holiday sat down with Jacquelyn Howard, a co-founder of Stand With Black Women- WA, a movement and group focused on advocating for Black women within the state and beyond. Howard explains to Holiday the campaign's origins and its most recent activity of writing a letter of support for Dr. Claudine Gay.
Dr. Gay is the first Black woman to become president of Harvard University. Recently, she resigned after experiencing intense scrutiny due to her appearance alongside other university presidents in a Congressional hearing regarding antisemitism on Harvard's campus in light of the Israel-Hamas conflict. In addition, she faced accusations of plagiarism, a claim that, to many, has been questionable.
"I want to underscore that only three college presidents and university presidents were brought forth to testify; they're all women. And Dr. Claudia Gay was the only Black woman. They were pretty much scrutinized and put into corners around, you know, what their stance was on the use of words like genocide," Howard said. "And I think most people who are in these high positions are given scripts by, you know, their administration, by lawyers, by people who are in communication roles, and she was speaking to the script, and it wasn't too the soothing of the particular representative that was part of the congressional hearing. And she was basically, for lack of a better word, she was crucified."
Following her hearing, Dr. Gay, who still maintained her job as Harvard's president, was accused of plagiarism and, soon after, resigned. Her treatment, as well as her resignation, is what caused Howard and her group 'Sisters of Seattle' to start their crusade.
"If you think of the acronym SOS, people use that to say, "Hey, I'm under stress, I need some help. I need some support," Howard said. "But it's also the acronym for Sisters of Seattle. And within that circle are some potent women, and we were all in our own right minds upset about what happened to Dr. Gay."
The SOS acted fast and soon after created their letter supporting Dr. Gay.
"We thought we could get like 50 signatures, maybe 100," Howard said. "Well, now we're [at] almost 400 signatures from women across the state of Washington that have signed on."
The movement and creation of the letter have not been without backlash.
"We've gotten a lot of airplay. We've gotten some haters, we've gotten some trollers that said, "You're just supporting her because she's a Black woman," Howard said. "No, it's because she's a black woman and qualified and put under the scrutiny of the press and other, you know, really terrible people who want to see her brought down."
Regardless, Howard's movement is going strong and still growing.
"We didn't want to make this a moment; we wanted to make a movement. And so we're continuously strategizing about our next steps to help support and stand with Black women," Howard said. "We're a force of four right now, but we have 400-plus people behind us who want to see something positive happen."
Howard emphasizes the significance of speaking out, noting that some individuals among her very movement felt uncomfortable signing the letter. For her, this underscores the importance of advocating for those hesitant to raise their voices, displaying a commitment to speaking up on their behalf.
"It's a very visible letter. It is publicly available to hit the press in a couple of different ways. And our names are on it. And we all have families, and we have roles, and we have careers. Our names are out there and, so we could be victimized. But we've wanted to plow forward. What if Katherine Johnson had stopped and never worked on the NASA project because she was feeling sad? What if Harriet Tubman fell asleep and never woke up and said, " I'm not doing this anymore," Howard said. “There are people who don't feel comfortable speaking up. So, on behalf of them, we did it."
Black women wishing to sign the letter in support of Dr. Claudine Gay can continue to do so here.
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