Patents on the soles of your shoes...: US Constitution

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

Speech acts - The Hill We Climb - Amanda Gorman

On this Twentieth Day of January, at noon (EST), the 46th President of the United States, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., was vested with Executive Power, after he took the 35-word Oath of Office, extracted from Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution, reciting after Chief Justice Roberts :

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. (National Archives, US Constitution, Sept 17, 1787)

On this memorable day, the Nation’s Youth Poet Laureate, 22-year old Amanda Gorman, was invited to compose a poem for the occasion. The YouTube video below captured the stunning words and impressive rendition of her poem, titled The hill we climb (Gorman, 2021).

References

Gorman, A. (Sept 21, 2021) The Hill We Climb. New York, NY: Penguin/Random House. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/688816/the-hill-we-climb-by-amanda-gorman/9780593465066/

Gorman, A. (Jan 20, 2021) The hill we climb (Transcription). https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/amanda-gorman-inauguration-poem-transcript-the-hill-we-climb

National Archives. The Constitution of the United States: A transcription. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript

Sunday, March 8, 2020

International Women’s Day (IWD) 2020

The first International Women’s Day (IWD) was celebrated more than one century ago, within the context of the women’s suffrage movement and the International Socialist Party platforms of Europe and the US. On March 19, 1911, more than 1 million women, in Europe and the US, responded to the call for peace and universal suffrage. In 1917, after granting women the right to vote, March 8 was declared International Women’s Day, in the Soviet Union, a day that began to be widely celebrated, in both Europe and the US. In the United States, it was just three years later, on August 18, 1920, that the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution was ratified, prohibiting States and the Federal government from denying or abridging the right to vote, on the basis of sex.

In 2020, the IWD theme “An equal world is an enabled world” reiterates the underlying tenets of a movement still in progress, striving to show that equality for women is progress for all. In the 60s, IWD also became part of the international Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM), integrating both the political and personal aspects of womanhood.