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• 1 2019-12-09T22:47:11-05:00 Article: Shirley Graham DuBois Visits San Francisco 5 plain 2020-03-18T00:17:00-04:00

  This artifact is a memo published in the May/June 1975 edition of the Friendship Journal Associations of the San Francisco Bay Area. The article is about Shirley Du Bois' visit to The University of California School on Nursing where she gave a talk entitled "The Women in China." The article details the Chinese Communist party’s successes in women’s liberation. This article teaches us about the role media played in projecting the interaction between activists, like Shirley Du Bois, who supported Communism in the Black Liberation movement. Moreover, it shows the impact of activists in spreading Communist education in a time when this information was heavily restricted in the United States. More specifically, Du Bois emphasizes Mao's China as a successful example of a place with "the most liberated women in the world." Here, she aims to convince the audience that Communism is a positive and liberating force. In the article, Du Bois emphasizes certain aspects of what constitutes a liberated woman saying that they are present participating in all fields of endeavor including as "electrical workers, oil workers, doctors, surgeons, cancer and scientific researchers, aviation, and in administrative posts on all levels." The article relies on Shirley Du Bois accounts from her visits to China to ground its claims of successful liberation. Du Bois efforts to raise awareness about Communism relate to Angela Davis’ frustration with the suppression of Communist education in the United States. In her autobiography, Davis expounds upon the United States deliberate effort to present a one-sided view of Communism. Du Bois talk in Berkeley and its subsequent publication is in line with Davis’ belief that Feminist activists must do more to spread positive messages about Communism.