Seven people, all women of color, joined us for another screening of Sisters in Freedom on Tuesday, March 19, 2019. The post-film discussion went quickly to resistance after one viewer remarked that women are still out knocking on doors and getting petitions signed.
A few of the women had canvassed for political campaigns and all said they were informed voters. They lamented the apathy they perceive among most people today. From their perspective, Philadelphia’s racial inequality persists in education, income, wealth, and housing, but they don’t see anyone in younger generations resisting these challenges. They cited the threat to raze Bartram Village, a housing project in Southwest Philadelphia, as an example. According to the viewers, residents of the projects and of Southwest Philadelphia have accepted that Bartram Village’s demolition is inevitable and that poor people will be displaced from their homes.
The amoebic discussion centered around the erosion of community structures that in the past kept people informed and able to form a more united activist front. Housing integration led to white flight and middle-class black flight. People used to learn about political issues at churches, but church attendance has declined. Parents on the block knew one another because their children played together, and mothers watched each other’s children; now children go to daycare and don’t play with their neighbors. Incarceration has taken away too many fathers. High property taxes, imminent domain, and gentrification have pushed longtime residents out of their homes in South, Southwest, and Kensington. The women noted that their neighborhood library is the closest thing they have to a community gathering space and is where they’re most likely to learn about social issues.
The women noted that the female abolitionists had rallied across racial lines for a common cause. They thought similar alliances would be formed today, if women could find a common cause. They felt this was unlikely, however, as everyone seems to have a different issue that’s important to them. Some care about the environment, some education, some wage equality. Viewers saw how some of these causes could be linked. They believed, for example, that if the minimum wage were raised so high that public assistance was eliminated, more people would demand accountability for how their taxes are spent, particularly in education.
