Tuesday 29 September 2015

About Viola Davies winning an award...

Remember, last week, Viola Davies won an Emmy... and made history:


She quotes Harriet Tubman. Do you know her?


Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross c. 1822 – March 10, 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and, during the American Civil War, a Union spy. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some thirteen missions to rescue approximately seventy enslaved family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped abolitionist John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era struggled for women's suffrage.
Born a slave in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was beaten and whipped by her various masters as a child. Early in life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate slave owner threw a heavy metal weight intending to hit another slave and hit her instead. The injury caused dizziness, pain, and spells of hypersomnia, which occurred throughout her life. She was a devout Christian and experienced strange visions and vivid dreams, which she ascribed to premonitions from God.
In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, then immediately returned to Maryland to rescue her family. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom. Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Tubman (or "Moses", as she was called) "never lost a passenger". Her actions made slave owners anxious and angry, and they posted rewards for her capture. When a far-reaching United States Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850, she helped guide fugitives further north into Canada, and helped newly freed slaves find work.
When the US Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than seven hundred slaves. After the war, she retired to the family home on property she had purchased in 1859 in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. She was active in the women's suffrage movement until illness overtook her and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly African-Americans that she had helped to establish years earlier. After she died in 1913, she became an icon of American courage and freedom.


From Wikipedia.

But it's interesting to get other opinions, and see reactions to Viola's already famous speech:



7 comments:

  1. Her speech was so touching ! I thought I was going to cry !

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  2. She's incredible and her speech too, she really deserves the emmy!
    -becarefulouis

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  3. Her speech was amazing ! She deserves it.
    Btw thanks for the article I had never heard of Harriet Tubman, she's so inspiring.

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  4. I love Black people, that's very sad that at our time racism is always living ...
    I'm very chocked that producers and film makers or any one else don't give a main character to black men or woman, we're not during the triangular trade ! We're at the 21th century guys.... And further, at Hollywood ... 'American Dream' they said...

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  5. I cried. Literraly. I never paid attention for the people who won an award. Now, I feel like I should do because I did not imagine they were not black women. That is such a shame.

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  6. Her speech is awesome and so beautiful, it gave me a tear in the eye !

    PHI

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  7. she is a good person, it's a true person !
    -Lili

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