(cheering and applause)
Welcome back!
The #METOO movement may feel like a new phenomenon,
but black women have been fighting
against sexual harassment since Harriet Tubman
was taking glamour shots with a sepia filter.
It's true. Take a look at "Hidden Fighters."
♪♪
(woman) The media tends to focus only on white women's stories
when it comes to issues of sexual harassment.
Black women are an afterthought in women's rights issues
and racial justice issues.
(Robin) They're right-- the faces credited for #METOO
look nothing like the woman who founded it in 2006, Tarana Burke.
Tarana created the movement so women could speak out...
I got this, Robin.
(Robin) My bad, Miss Burke.
"Me Too" was created for black and brown girls.
As a survivor, as a black woman, as a mom,
there was not even a conversation
about the sexual violence that I saw as so pervasive
in our community.
(Robin) But "Me Too" is just part of a larger legacy
of black women's fight against sexual harassment.
We've been in these streets since "Wade in the Water"
was on the Hot 100.
Just like the sisters behind the space program,
it was black women who pioneered
our nation's sexual harassment laws.
And we weren't just a chapter in this story.
We wrote the table of contents, the footnotes, the prologue--
we wrote the whole damn book.
Before "Me Too," before "Time's Up,"
there were other heroes that made sexual harassment
what we understand it to be today.
♪♪
Peep Harriet Jenkins,
an escaped slave whose memoir exposed the sexual abuse
that enslaved women endured.
And before Rosa stayed parked on that bus,
she was an NAACP investigator
who helped Recy Taylor, a black woman
who was raped on her way home from church.
In her day, Rosa had black women covered
like cocoa butter in the winter.
Fast forward to the 1970s,
when "Soul Train" was the preferred mode of transportation,
and the term "sexual harassment"
wasn't recognized by law.
That is, until Eleanor Holmes Norton
electric-slid onto the scene.
(Tanya Hernandez) Eleanor Holmes Norton
was the very first female head of the EEOC,
the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission.
She developed the first guidelines
to show how sexual harassment
was a form of workplace discrimination.
I should note, of course, though,
that the EEOC guidelines are not mandatory.
They're just a suggestion.
(Robin) No, don't note that.
Because in 1986, another hidden fighter came through.
Michelle Vinson was a 19-year-old bank teller.
She is harassed relentlessly by her employer.
This is a woman who experienced brutality in the workplace.
(Robin) After an eight-year legal battle,
Michelle made it to the Supreme Court
and came out with a supreme win.
Not only is it a time when the Supreme Court is saying,
"Sexual harassment is against the law,"
it's also a recognition
of a harm happening to a black woman.
(Robin) That's right, random footage we found or people cheering.
Sexual harassment was illegal nationwide,
all because of a black woman.
Stand and be sworn, if you will.
But like Juneteenth,
it took some time for the word to spread.
(Tanya) The 1991 confirmation hearings
of Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill's testimony
is what educated working women
that sexual harassment was against the law.
(Robin) Hill was subpoenaed to speak
at Thomas's hearing,
and she was accompanied by a legal team
with one familiar face.
Well, I was a colleague of Anita's in the early '90s.
So I went to DC as part of the team
to assist in any way possible.
(Robin) Oh, snap!
Dr. Crenshaw was inside the courthouse the whole time.
He spoke about acts that he had seen
in pornographic films
involving such matters as women having sex with animals
and films showing group sex or rape scenes.
(Kimberle Crenshaw) Women were incensed
at the treatment of Anita Hill.
(crowd chattering)
It fueled a tremendous backlash
against existing politicians.
And more women were elected in the next term
than had ever been elected before.
(Robin) And with more women in office,
I bet the laws followed behind
to protect us from all kinds of sexual harassment, right?
Legi-slay!
Yeah, not quite. (chuckling)
(Robin) For real?
Damn, I knew it was too good to be true.
I know, I'm sorry, but not sorry.
Because not all women
are protected from sexual harassment
and sexual violence.
The EEOC only recognizes a workplace
as one which has 15 or more employees.
Domestic workers don't work in those contexts.
(Robin) Working behind closed doors
makes domestic workers especially vulnerable
to coward-ass, weak-ass, head-ass predators.
That's why June and Alicia fight to protect domestic workers
with the National Domestic Workers Alliance,
which is basically the Justice League,
but with more black women.
All domestic workers deserve... fair wages.
Protection against sexual harassment.
Our work is the work that make your work possible.
Respect us.
We are working hard towards building the momentum
to be able to pass a federal domestic worker bill of rights.
If this movement is going to be successful,
we can't just focus on the black women
who we put on pedestals.
We have to think about the women
who are everyday workers, who we ignore.
(Robin) Black women are leading the fight
against sexual harassment, and until the fight is won,
we can't stop, won't stop making history.
At the end of the day,
I'm fighting for all-- all women.
I do it with love and a lot of power.
(cheering and applause)
Those are the real heroes!
We'll be right back.
(cheering and applause)