#OnThisDay, 16 Jan 1970, Dilma Rousseff, a member of the Brazilian guerrilla movement against the military government, was arrested. She was labelled the “Joan of Arc” of the movement.
In 2011 she became the first woman to be president of Brazil.
“The simple act of walking through a schoolhouse door that had been barred to me, and all people of my color, by the governor of this state - that simple act represented an end to legal segregation in the American South.”
#OnThisDay, 11 June 1963, Vivian Malone defies the Governor of Alabama to become the first Black female student at the University of Alabama.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #AmericanHistory #Histodons
New Wikipedia article on the 1971 Fifth Street Women's Building Takeover ✅
At midnight on January 1, 1971, over 100 women occupied 330 East Fifth Street, a derelict building in Manhattan that had previously been a welfare office. A coalition of 40 feminist groups had asked city officials if they could start a women's center in an abandoned government property. When it became clear the city wasn't interested in giving women the resources they needed, they decided to make them.
They occupied the building for 13 days, establishing a food co-op, daycare, medical clinic, and lesbian center. Women gave and received practical demonstrations in carpentry, plumbing, first aid, karate, and art. The group operated non-hierarchically, with women rotating shifts as guards, facilitators, and coordinators.
City officials were initially open to negotiating with the feminists, but abruptly changed course after the organizers refused to give the welfare office information about women who came to Fifth Street to receive services. The police shut down the women's building a few days later. 24 women were arrested, but most of their charges were dropped because they turned their backs to cameras and came to court wearing makeup, high heels, and coiffed hair. The police didn't recognize their alleged attackers. 330 East Fifth Street was demolished and turned into a police parking lot. (Truly you cannot make this shit up.)
#Wikipedia #Feminism #History #WomensHistory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Street_Women%27s_Building_Takeover?wprov=sfla1
