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Images International

Archival Collection of Talks on Various Bahá'í Subjects

Early Black Women in the Professions

1989

Mrs. Gwen Lewis thanked to all people who helped on her research. She spoke about the sufferings and hopes of black women.  She said, "The inquality of women is not of women only; it is problem, it is an issue that is cuts across all cultures". She cited some statistics from US Department of Labor; in 1980 families headed by black women are the poorest in America with poverty rates tripled that of other families. Women earn 10% of the world income and yet own only 1% of the world's property. In the USA in 1983, 2 out of 3 older American women were living in poverty. Fifty to seventy percent of wives of US families experience battery during their marriages. Every three minutes a woman is bitten by her male partner. What is happening in women’s world? Society has not witnessed any significant change over the past 30 years. Black women suffered a double discrimination because of being a women and being black. Justice demands equality of, not only the sexes, but  equality of the race. Many black women have been involved in Baha’i teaching around the world. At the end of her talk she quotes Baha’u’llah “By the righteousness of the one true God! If one speck of a jewel be lost and buried beneath a mountain of stones, and lie hidden beyond the seven seas, the Hand of Omnipotence will assuredly reveal it in this day, pure and cleansed from dross”.