The black woman is as diverse and as beautiful as the billions of humans to whom she gave birth. The first homo sapiens to appear on the fertile lands of East Africa were nourished in its womb; the wisdom and strength that characterize black women today are not a recent acquisition but qualities perfected over thousands of years. Every woman on this earth has mitochondrial DNA (mitochondrial DNA is the DNA transferred from mother to child and the only genetic material that stands the test of time) from Lucy, the little black woman found in the Awash Valley in Ethiopia. Lucy is her English name but I prefer the name given to her by the Ethiopians, Dinkesh, which means “you are beautiful” or “you are wonderful”. Her dark skin, beautiful lips and natural hair are not a sign of shame or inferiority but of the dominance of her genes. The fact that any baby born to a black woman and a man of another race will more likely resemble its mother is a testament to this dominance, a testament that within the veins of a black woman is the model of the life. However, let's put aside everything I have said and yet black women still do not receive the respect they are due. A travesty has been committed which leaves the black woman to die alone and her offspring without a father. Single black mothers are omnipresent in all black neighborhoods and cast a negative shadow over an entire people who have lost the fundamental atom of what makes a people a people: family. The black woman in the United States plays a precarious role: she is a woman, she is black, and is quickly becoming the dominant force of her people. The black woman is increasingly the sole breadwinner in her household because she is forced into this position by...... middle of paper ......r Black men of the time and their wives formed powerful tandems who endured the fight hand in hand. The civil rights era is a period in American history that evokes painful memories, but it can be considered our finest hour. In United States history, the phrase "the Greatest Generation" is used to describe the generation that fought in World War II. This is another lesser-mentioned “Greatest Generation” and is the generation that navigated the turbulent waters of the civil rights and black power era. A well-known fact from this period that continues to puzzle researchers is the fact that during the era of Jim Crow and open racism, 98% of all black families consisted of a man and a woman. What we can deduce from this period is that although we were oppressed and alienated, we were united. We loved and cared for each other because all we had was each other.