Women of the Week: Kathleen Cleaver

No real social change has ever been brought about without a revolution... revolution is but thought carried into action."

Emma Goldman

For radical results, one must make radical changes. Imagine an era of no social media- when rights of humans and women were limited and challenged. One woman defied her entire social fabric to promote civil rights for both her culture and for women of her age.

Kathleen Cleaver, an American law professor became the communications secretary and the first female member of the Black Panthers Party’s decision-making body in 1967. The times were turbulent; a un-just war was being fought in both Vietnam and on the African-American members of the U.S. and Ms.Cleaver wanted change...

“Kathleen, like many of the women involved in the Civil Rights Movement, sought an equal partnership alongside her male peers. Although she found more freedom as a woman in the Black Panthers, she discovered that sexism remained a problem. She noted that ideas offered by men were immediately implemented, while the same ideas when posed by women were ignored. "The suggestion itself," she explained, "was never viewed objectively. The fact that the suggestion came from a woman gave it lesser value."

Her life was never made easy. She witnessed countless friends being persecuted and murdered by the government, and was even exiled to another country while pregnant with her first child. Kathleen strength's decided to fight back with the best weapon she has-her mind. She continued her education to attained a law degree and even became Senior Lecturer in the African American Studies department at Yale University. Today she is serving as senior lecturer at Emory University School of Law. Through education continues to fuel the revolution of un-just causes for humans of all color, belief and creed.

Kathleen is the woman of the week, because of her tenacity, grace and poised inspires us to seek not revolution but evolution within ourselves. An evolution that starts in our mind and to seek knowledge and enforce that in fact- together we are unstoppable.