Become a patron today and gain access to exclusive. Help make Breaking the Chains a successful project that can reach women across the country. For a few dollars a month you can sustain the production of Breaking the Chains, get a subscription and cool swag (think Socialist feminist shirts, buttons, posters and stickers!). Learn more about becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/BreakChainsMag.
Breaking the Chains is excited to announce a Patreon-exclusive series, “She Who Struggles,” a biographical series that tells the story of women who led the way in many fronts of struggle for liberation.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s fierce commitment to working class struggle stemmed from a love of her country and its people. In her own words: “ I fell in love with my country – its rivers, prairies, forests, mountains, cities and people. No one can take my love of country away from me! I felt then, as I do now, it’s a rich, fertile, beautiful land, capable of satisfying all the needs of its people. It could be a paradise on earth if it belonged to the people, not to a small owning class.”
Access Full Biography
After her own escape to freedom, Harriet Tubman dedicated her life to the liberation of enslaved African Americans. Over the next ten years, she helped 300 people escape slavery through the Underground Railroad and never lost a single “passenger”. She was a woman of iron discipline – when someone decided to turn back, she would point her gun at them and say “You’ll be free or die.”
Access Full Biography
She described the untold violence of the South African apartheid regime in a memoir: “They honestly believed that it was impossible for a [B]lack woman to have this kind of stamina, to be this stubborn. Because they were meant to break us and they could not believe that anyone would resist them like that?… We were the cannon fodder, we were the foot soldiers, we were vulnerable, and we were exposed to the viciousness of apartheid.”
Access Full Biography
Petra Herrera was a woman who refused to let sexism define her revolutionary contribution and was determined to serve the advancement of her country. She recruited other women to join her in destroying the patriarchal expectations of the roles women played in the Mexican Revolution and defended their rights with both wily tactics and bullets. Her accomplishments have withstood the test of time, despite the attempts of men to erase her work from history.
Through skill and grit, the women dodged enemy fire and rained terror upon Nazi forces, denying them any hope of a peaceful sleep. In total, the Night Witches damaged or destroyed 17 river crossings, nine railways, two railway stations, 26 warehouses, 12 fuel depots, 176 armored cars, 86 prepared firing positions, and 11 searchlights.
Access Full Biography
| Sylvia was an advocate for liberation for all. She saw how struggles for gay liberation intersected with the struggles for universal housing and criminal justice. Undeterred by the oppressive systems that faced her, she dedicated herself to the struggle wholeheartedly and had a radical vision of a liberated society. Access Full Biography |
| When Mae Mallory pulled her children out of school, she and the other mothers of the Harlem 9 became shining examples of revolutionary love—fighting back against the system not for themselves, but for their children’s futures and the futures of all children marginalized in the New York City school system. They refused to comply with a system that discriminated against their children and themselves. Access Full Biography |
Though her life was cut short too early, Ella May Wiggins’ sense of struggle and contribution to the workers’ movement burned brightly. Perhaps one of the most widely circulated photos of Ella May Wiggins is the photo used for her obituary. She is smiling slightly in a white collared dress and a tie, with one hand on her hip. In that hand, she is holding a sunflower. She is a vision of confidence and determination, and her eyes look seasoned with struggle and loss.
Access Full Biography