Paula J. Giddings

Paula J. Giddings

Paula J. Giddings was born on November 16th, 1947 and is currently 78 years old. Paula J. Giddings was born in Yonkers, NY, USA.

Paula J. Giddings is best known as a civil rights activist, historian, and writer from the United States. She has made a name for herself for her work chronicling the lives and history of African American women in the US.

Giddings has put out works exploring how gender and race have been critical in shaping American life. She has also chronicled how African American women have fought for justice and equality, as well as the struggles and history of Black leaders and women.

Paula J. Giddings has also worked as a journalist and book editor, writing extensively on national and international issues. Her work has been published by scholarly journals and prestigious publications such as Jeune Afrique Paris, The Washington Post, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.

She has also been a United Negro Fund Distinguished Scholar at Spelman College, taught Africana studies at Smith College, and been a professor of Women’s Studies at Duke and Princeton Universities.

At Smith College, Paula J. Giddings was the editor of the peer-reviewed interdisciplinary and feminist journal Meridians: Feminism, Race, and Transnationalism. The journal provides a forum for creative work and scholarships for women of color in the US.

In her debut work, When and Where I Enter, Paula J. Giddings explores how African American women fight both sexism and racism in the United States.

She showcases the roles African American women played in political and social movements from slavery through the 1960s, the era of civil rights. Giddings draws from stories, letters, and speeches to show how black women worked for justice and change.

She writes about the work of leaders such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Ida B. Wells, explaining how African American women were at the forefront of the fight for fairness, equality, and voting rights in America.

In 2008, Paula J. Giddings published Ida: A Sword Among Lions, in which she tells the story of the activist and journalist Ida B. Wells, who fought against lynchings in the United States.

The work shows the beginnings of her work, right from when she was ejected from a train for attempting to take her seat in a whites-only carriage. This was the moment that motivated her to speak out and write against racial violence.

She follows the activist across England and the US to expose the harm of lynching, particularly on the African American community. She also shows how Ida worked for civil rights and stood up to discrimination using her speeches and writing to demand justice and challenge dangerous lies.

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Paula J. Giddings: F.A.Q