'Daughters' welcomes 1st black woman to national board

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Deepti Hajela, Associated Press Updated 11:04 am CDT, Saturday, June 29, 2019

NEW YORK (AP) — When Wilhelmena Rhodes Kelly hit a roadblock while researching her family history, a chance encounter at a conference with members of the Daughters of the American Revolution got her the help she needed to keep going.

Now, Kelly is helping the DAR have its own breakthrough moment. On Sunday, the lineage-based group, with a longstanding reputation as a bastion of white privilege, will install Kelly as the head of its New York state organization and the first African American woman on its national governing board.

The milestone, Kelly and others say, reflects the efforts the organization has made in recent decades to encourage women of color to get involved, after a long history of exclusion.

The Daughters of the American Revolution was founded in 1890. The first black woman to join in modern times became a member of the organization in 1977.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Daughters-welcomes-1st-black-woman-to-national-14060964.php#photo-17777788

[hlthe2b]

1. DAR, thank heavens...

I had a moment of horror/amazement thinking it was Daughters of the Confederacy.

[deurbano]

7. My mother attended United Daughter of the Confederacy meetings, even in CA, after moving here from

Mississippi. I didn't realize the pivotal role the UDC played in erecting all those monuments to the Confederacy and perpetuating Confederacy mythology until I read the article (linked below) in Salon. I mean, I had a vague idea, since my mom, herself, continues to to push the myths, and was always saying "The South shall rise again" (seemingly as a joke, but recent events have proven that hope to be all-to-serious for a disturbing number of people).

https://www.salon.com/2018/10/06/7-things-the-united-daughters-of-the-confederacy-might-not-want-you-to-know-about-them_partner/

7 things the United Daughters of the Confederacy might not want you to know about them
The organization keeps Confederate statues standing and spreads lies about America’s history of slavery

KALI HOLLOWAY
OCTOBER 6, 2018

[hlthe2b]

8. Oh, I know. I was "honored' (believe it or not) as a junior high student when we were all REQUIRED

to write some stupid essay about Stone Mountain (with its massive confederate carving)... Little did I know, it was going to be submitted to them to judge. I thought was just a stupid school assignment. I don't remember if there was a winner or they just selected a bunch of us as "honorees" but we all had to go to this stupid ceremony. I may still have the bronze medallion they gave out somewhere (fortunately it was non-controversial with only a depiction of Stone Mountain on one side and some generic Latin on the other side).

Oh, and we were "treated" to the honor of placing confederate flags on the graves outside the church.

I don't remember much beyond that, but looking back, I should have taken the "F"...

BTW, I think my parents had quite the bemused laugh out of this episode. We being Westerners/Midwesterners relocated to the Deep South during my formative years.

[msongs]

2. good to hear. not sure what the DAR is good for tho nt

[WhiteTara]

4. Me either.

Both sides of my family fought in the revolution, so that would make me DAR on both sides of the family. And? money will get me a cup of coffee.

[paleotn]

16. Like many other non-profit organizations

tons of volunteer work, particularly with the VA, education and historic preservation. Plus, it's a nice counterbalance to the United Daughters of Racist Traitors.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Didn't Eleanor Roosevelt resign from DAR when it refused to allow Marion Anderson

Last edited Sun Jun 30, 2019, 01:24 PM - Edit history (1)

permission to perform in its hall?

It took 75 years for "Daughters" to wake up.

[whistler162]

5. yup

https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/american_originals/eleanor.html

[sandensea]

6. And I suspect most haven't really changed.

Like the GOP, they've learned that making a token concession to minorities can help them disarm accusations of bigotry.

[hughee99]

10. Over the last 75 years, I imagine most of the members back then are a lot deader now. n/t

[sandensea]

11. I mean the DAR.

And a lot of other ladies-who-lunch groups, really (with exceptions).

They love their status - and above all lording it over others.

"Good help is so hard to find these days."

"I know just what you mean, Millicent. Ever since this Civil Rights business, it's been downhill all the way."

[onetexan]

13. speaking of the ladies-who-lunch group, i attended one in Dallas several months after the 2016

election - i believe it was the Liberal Ladies Who Lunch bunch. Full of overdressed, snotty white women. Not impressed with their claim to be liberal.

[sandensea]

18. Oh, well. At least their heart seems to be in the right place.

Try, one must.

[hlthe2b]

9. I'd forgotten that, but you are so right...

I love Eleanor.

[csziggy]

15. Yeah, my grandmother was a DAR officer (local) when that happened

In going through family papers I've found speeches she gave to her local chapter and at state and national conventions of the DAR. They might have been written for Trump to give today - and those speeches were made by my grandmother in the 1930s and 1940s.

There is a very good reason I never liked that grandmother - though when I was younger I blamed it on the way she made me dress up in "Colonial" period costumes and attend the George Washington Birthday Teas her chapter gave every year. Now I realize that she was not really a very nice person - and I was a born liberal even if my parents and grandparents were not.

[paleotn]

17. That thinking was par for the course back then....

north and south. We have a terrible track record of living up to the ideals the country was founded on. A problem not lost on many of the founders themselves.

[Demovictory9]

12. about time

[Paladin]

14. Wow. A couple of my old aunts are spinning in their graves.

They were DAR members, and I'm afraid they wouldn't have approved of Ms. Kelly's membership. On the other hand, my mother would have been overjoyed---she refused to join the DAR because of its right-wing politics, particularly as to race.

[GulfCoast66]

19. My first response was going to be cynical. But upon thought...

My wife qualifies, as does my sister. Neither are members as it has a spotty reputation. But, maybe it can change. Or is changing.

From my limited experience most members are educated and by definition, women. The one group of whites most likely to vote democratic.

Maybe it will take on a more positive role.