Movements To Move Us!

I remember when they announced that Barack Obama won the election back in 2008. The tears that streamed down my Grandparents' faces were enough to tell a story in themselves. Before I knew it, my grandmothers were breaking down why seeing that was important. They went so far back to things I never even incorporated into the winning. My Grandma went back to the days when her mother was young. She told stories of how hard life was back in those days especially in the 1920's and 1930's. She told me how her mother was a fighter and died in the middle of some activist movement happening in the deep south. She died for a cause, a cause that got my grandma into a job where she met her husband and soon moved up to Chicago. My great Grandma was fighting for equality not just for blacks but also for women to be able to work instead of wait for a man to come find them. Unfortunately, she passed away in a burning building the KKK lit on fire to prove a point. Although their negative point got across, in Arkansas, a few years later their was an increase in female workers. (Grandma) My Granny told me about her stories of marching with Dr. King fighting for the smallest rights. She traveled from Mississippi to Chicago and back down numerous times for a fight she felt the need to lend a punch. She was pregnant during the time of one and in another she had recently had my mother. My granny and my granddaddy spent nights camping out in their car with their small daughters to ensure they were able to make it through to the next day for the fight of their lives. (Granny) The stories progressively became more recent as my mom put in her input on education and gender equality protests and fights. My mom is a huge stickler on getting a fair chance and proving people wrong. My mom was a teen mother back in the late 70's. Although equal rights were said to out, they were not. She had to fight stigmas and was apart of a protest in her college to open up the daycare facility to the students as well as faculty. The school also gave drastically less money to the female sports activities which my mother just so happened to be apart of. She spoke on teachers striking and students protesting. Some students made petitions while other stayed silently in practice wearing the solid color black. All these things somehow led to the way the nation is today. I imagined myself and the things I have participated in. I recently participated in a silent protest with the NIU Black Student Union. For one day, all supporters wore all black putting the hashtag BeingBlackAtNortern on all social media sights, naming the problem we have with NIU. It upsets me that I work for NIU and we promote diversity but we put way less effort into our diverse programs. The Bass fishing club which is basically all Caucasian received the most funding while the Black studies, Latino Studies, LGBT, Asian and much more each struggled to get hardly anything to support ourselves. Every day I see a new poster for another event from each group with a price just because we are trying to create resources for our groups. I see the pain in the leaders to be happy and recruit people but barely able to afford to support us. Then I struggle myself at work to talk to prospective students and their parents lying to them saying how great it is to be here. To be completely honest NIU is unfair. I hope one day we all can collaborate together and build up the courage to take a stance towards an actually diversely equal campus. Hopefully one day soon. http://northernstar.info/campus/news/article_51b187f4-f197-11e1-94d0-001a4bcf6878.html (bass fishing club gets money article in the Northern Star)