by Oriaku Njoku

Women’s History Month has always been interesting for me. It’s a time when I reflect on all of my “otherness” and what that means for my place in “women’s history.” Being a first-generation Igbo Nigerian-American Queer Southern woman, I always wondered if there would ever be a moment in time where I would do something (besides simply surviving) that would allow me to make my own mark on history. For me, that moment came as I stood in front of the Supreme Court on March 2, 2016, with throbbing ankles and achy legs, rallying for abortion access as the Supreme Court considered the most important abortion case in my lifetime.

I was proud to be there representing the South, and on behalf of Access Reproductive Care-Southeast. As I stood there, I could not help but think of the resilient, radical, revolutionary women who have fought for human rights in our country, in whose footsteps I am now walking. I could not help but reflect on how the past influences me in the present. Nor could I fail to recognize how learning from our past will ultimately shape my ability to change the way we talk about abortion in the South. I found myself trying to channel the strength of the women of color who have inspired me to be brave and bold as I work to make sure that all Southerners and families have access to the reproductive healthcare we want, need, and deserve.


Standing in front of SCOTUS, I felt surrounded by the warmth, wisdom, and #BlackGirlMagic of ancestors like my godmother Onuma “Mma” Ezera, Audre Lorde, and elders like Byllye Avery whom I call my movement mothers. Their words and actions made it possible for me to be the unapologetic reproductive justice advocate I am today. Our movement mothers made it possible for me and nearly three thousand individuals to show up for abortion access and speak out against anti-choice legislation that seeks to rob us of our ability to make the best decisions for our lives.

Raising our family in Kentucky, my Nigerian parents sacrificed so much to make sure that my siblings and I had all the same opportunities as everyone else. They encouraged us to never forget where we came from as we grow in this world. My parents also made sure we had a long list of female role models who we could reach out to when we needed that extra push that only a community invested in your success could give.

My brilliant Nigerian godmother and original movement mother, Onuma “Mma” Ezera, was the strongest influence on who I have become today. She was an Africana Bibliographer and Africana Librarian at Michigan State University, an activist, the unofficial “Mother of all Nigerians” in Lansing, Michigan, and a truly phenomenal woman. When she started to notice that she was suffering from memory loss related to Alzheimer’s Disease, she asked my dad to bring me and my siblings to visit her. It was the last time I saw her and I think she knew it would be too. Mma made sure to tell me a few things that I still carry with me today. She told me that I come from people who have a history of being warriors that never stopped fighting for what was right, and that is part of what it means to be an Igbo woman. She said the fight would never be easy and through it all, I should never forget where I came from.

When I was 11, I just nodded, smiled, gave Mma a hug and promised I would heed her words. It was not until she passed away in 2011 that I understood the importance of what Mma told me. I knew I had to do something different with my life.

Luckily, I found reproductive justice, or she found me.

Reproductive justice is more than a social justice movement for autonomy. Audre Lorde said, “There is no single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” In reproductive justice, this means our struggle goes beyond the right to choose whether or not to become a parent. It is a movement where my race, queer identity, ethnicity, gender, class and whole identity are welcome. Reproductive justice empowers me, all of me, to brazenly fight for what I know is right, which is the freedom for people to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. Reproductive justice is a future I envision where the complex stories and lives of everyone are equally honored and treated with respect, and where the human rights and dignity of individuals are preserved.

As someone who now dedicates my life to reproductive justice, I am grateful to those who paved the way. The visionary movement mother that resonates with me the most is Byllye Avery. As I read the transcript of an interview with Byllye Avery conducted by Loretta Ross in 2005 I was struck by her powerful story, how her life shaped her activism, and how she has evolved into the leader she is today.







Avery is described as one of the first to center the lived experiences of African American women in reproductive health and rights. Amazingly, Ms. Avery has been able to do this work centering the lived experiences of Black women while building meaningful relationships with white allies. She is able to bring her full self into the work by not letting her lesbian identity or initial fear due to lack of knowledge in the field deter her from doing the work. Byllye Avery truly believes in the power of people as experts of their own stories. And she facilitated this storytelling in consciousness raising groups which inevitably led to healing, heightened awareness, and important conversation about Black women’s health and the decisions we make.

Traveling to the Rally for Abortion Access with a diverse Southern Contingency made me realize that this was not only a huge moment in Women’s History, but that this was also a powerful moment in Black History, Queer History, and the History of Immigrant Women. What is Women’s History Month if not a time for us to all celebrate our stories? I hope that during Women’s History Month, that we all take time to reflect on the women of color who laid the foundation for the work we do as we make our own history. I hope we continue to recognize and honor our ancestors and elders who influenced our ability to thrive as we navigate a world that may have other ideas on who we can and should be.

Photo: Shutterstock

Oriaku Njoku is the co-founder and executive director of Access Reproductive Care - Southeast (ARC-Southeast), a reproductive justice organization based in Atlanta, Georgia whose focus is funding abortions and movement building in the Southeast.

by Bee Quammie

Historically, important Black women are determined. They’re risk-takers. Their art inspires culture and their culture inspires art. They defend their people, encouraging us to dream bigger, stand taller, and speak louder. They rewrite history, urging their community to embrace the authenticity within our birthrights, even when others say we shouldn’t be proud of who we are. They may do one or some or none of these things, but there is one woman who did them all: the Honorable Dr. Louise Bennett-Coverley, better known as Miss Lou.


Her life began in Kingston, Jamaica in 1919. And Toronto, Canada was where it ended in 2006. Her 86 years on this earth were marked by notable achievements like being the first Black student to attend England’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and being the inspiring force behind Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O” song, which he styled after Miss Lou’s recording of “Day Dah Light.” An award-winning Jamaican folklorist, writer, and educator, Miss Lou was many things to many people, yet one could argue that her greatest impact was in her ovation of Jamaican patois, or Jamaican Creole.

“Creole” is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “a mother tongue formed from the contact of a European language (especially English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese) with local languages (especially African languages spoken by slaves in the West Indies).” The Collins Dictionary describes it as “a language that has its origin in extended contact between two language communities, one of which is generally European. It incorporates features from each and constitutes the mother tongue of a community.” The community of West African slaves who were forced into servitude in Jamaica created this mother tongue from the languages of their colonizing masters and those of the homes they left behind. Speaking patois was an act of survival, an act of solidarity, and an act of rebellion—and patois itself has grown and morphed from those days until now.

“Miss Lou made Jamaican Creole valid,” states Marlene Gaynair, a doctoral student at Rutgers University studying Black Atlantic history. Miss Lou’s life spanned the days of Jamaica’s staunch British allegiance through its independence in 1962, and from her time as a Kingston girl to her time as a Jamaican in Britain, in Canada, and beyond. Her work reflected those experiences. In a climate that was rife with the effects of colonialism alongside bubbling Black pride, Jamaica tried to assert its identity through the perception of social conservatism. The country that has more churches per square mile than any other country in the world cloaked itself in respectability imposed upon it via colonialism. Patois, the language of the community, was cemented as something undesirable, improper, and “broken.” It is because of these things that Miss Lou’s work was so radical, and so necessary.

In her 1944 poem “Bans O’Killing,” Miss Lou speaks to a figure intent on “killing” the dialect of Jamaican patois, and illuminates the fact that so-called “proper English” consists of many dialects itself. Invalidating Jamaican patois while celebrating Cockney slang or Irish brogue was simply a way of centering the superiority of whiteness, and Miss Lou did not shy away from making her audience confront those beliefs. “Formerly colonized spaces are automatically seen as backwards or primitive or regressive. But Jamaicans like Miss Lou were going back into Jamaica's history to find something worth celebrating or being proud of,” says Gaynair.


Miss Lou’s work explicitly focused on instilling pride in Jamaican culture, folklore, and language. Her method of writing, speaking, teaching, and performing in patois was intentional and unapologetic. In the face of her critics she pressed on, becoming one of the Caribbean’s strongest advocates for the rejection of colonial thinking and investment in cultural pride. Miss Lou’s influence is in the background of conversations defending Rihanna while music critics call her dancehall-tinged single “Work” gibberish. Her upliftment of Afro-Jamaican patois and culture is reflected similarly in discussions of the nuances of AAVE and Black American culture, linking with the literary expressions of noted authors like Zora Neale Hurston. Her presence inspired and continues to inspire others to embrace the essence of who they are, motivating us to “walk good,” as she often said as a farewell.

Miss Lou described her motivations by saying:

Some thought Jamaican-English was vulgar, out-of-order language. It came out of the African heritage and at that time anything African was bad: hair, colour, skin, language, music. But I thought it was fascinating. Everything had a rhythm. It was a creation of the people. One reason I persisted in writing in dialect in spite of the opposition was because nobody else was doing so, and there was such a rich material in dialect that I felt I wanted to put on paper some of the wonderful things that people say in dialect. You could never say 'look here' as vividly as 'kuyah.'

Richness. Rhythm. Creation. Uniqueness. Strength. These are pieces of what makes Blackness great, and parts of what made Miss Lou tell us to be proud of “fi wi language.”


Bee Quammie is a Toronto-based health care professional, writer, and founder of ‘83 To Infinity and The Brown Suga Mama. Recognized by Black Enterprise & the Black Canadians Awards for her digital work, Bee aims to live '83 To Infinity's motto: "It's never too late to learn something new, do something new, or be someone new." Follow her on Twitter at @beequammie.

Beyoncé is inarguably one of the most powerful Black women in entertainment. She’s accomplished an unprecedented degree of visibility in the mainstream, not by chance. Along every step of her career, management has guided her shrewdly to make moves that would not threaten her goals. For years, the biggest criticism of Bey’s personal image was she played it too safe, but “safe” set her up for global superstardom.

Now Beyonce, 34, manages herself and approaches her career choices with a similar kind of care but a new boldness. 2013’s Self-Titled saw her visually and aurally cut loose as an artist. She gave audiences more than we’ve ever seen, and now the world awaits her next move.
It appears that Beyoncé, who has long been derided for her lackluster acting, wants to prove her detractors wrong. She will star in a remake of A Star is Born alongside Bradley Cooper, and over the weekend a rumor emerged that she’s set her sights on a biography of Saartjie Baartman. According to the report, Beyonce would like to write and star in the film.

Baartman was lured from her South African home in 1810 and enslaved. During this time until her death in 1815, she was put on display for European onlookers to gawk at her shapely body. She could not escape exploitation even in death. Her skeleton was on display in France until 1976. Baartman’s story has come to represent the intersection of hundreds of years of degradation that Black women endured and global colonialism. It’s a fascinating one. A well-done film version in English (a French film was released in 2010) would be a delight, but Beyonce should, under no circumstances, play Saartjie Baartman.

Beyoncé in the role would only perpetuate the type of colorist representations Black women have long fought against. If the story intrigues her, Beyoncé should aid in getting the movie made. In fact, she may be able to do her most important work as a producer, the kind of position Brad Pitt took in getting 12 Years a Slave to the big screen. Her push would be invaluable. That might be the only way a woman who resembles Baartman in complexion and body-type would be cast.

Moreover, all African Americans should be sensitive to the ways we may participate in the erasure of talent that emerges from the continent of Africa. We certainly do not have the power to perpetuate white supremacy systemically, but with the little visibility we have, we can attempt to elevate authentic voices. Ultimately, those of us who have access and resources must embrace that we are not always the right person to tell every story no matter how deeply it resonates.
Beyoncé draws undue cynicism about any choice she makes. Folks cannot wait to pull out their petty daggers and take aim. Claims that she is interested in the story only for its potential to garner her awards are unfair. She recognizes the power of her voice. Even the rumors of a connection to the project have raised the profile of Baartman’s tragedy. This, too, is important work.

A Saartjie Baartman biopic would not be just “another slave” movie. Americans get far too few depictions of slavery as an international system of trade and women are usually relegated to supportive roles. A Baartman film would be a coup. The history must be told.

UPDATE: Beyonce's reps confirm she is not working on a Saartjie Baartman project

Photo: Eastfjord Productions / Shutterstock.com/Apic/Getty

Kimberly Foster is the founder and editor-in-chief of For Harriet. Email or Follow @KimberlyNFoster

by Marco McWilliams for RI Future
Seventy years ago a black woman named Geneva Johnson was arrested on a Montgomery, Alabama public transit bus for allegedly having an incorrect bus fare and daring to display improper social decorum by “talking back” when the white driver scolded her. It was not uncommon for bus drivers to rob black riders at the pay meter. Historian Danielle McGuire notes: “Drivers shortchanged African Americans, then kicked them off the bus if they asked for correct change.” In the coming years, Montgomery would see the arrest of many more black women — Viola White, Claudette Colvin, Katie Wingfield — and even children who dared to challenge entrenched white power by violating the city’s segregation laws on the public bus lines through their refusal to vacate seating reserved for white passengers.
In 1952 Montgomery police shot and killed a black man over a fare dispute literally as he exited the bus. In yet another particularly horrid 1953 example, Epsie Worthy refused a white bus driver’s coercive attempt to rob her of an additional transfer fee. “Rather than pay again,” says Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, one of the boycott lead organizers and head of the Montgomery Women’s Political Council (WPC). “[Worthy] decided that she did not have far to go and would walk the rest of the way.” Angered by Worthy’s principled resistance the bus driver leapt from his seat and violently beset upon her. Although she mounted a valiant defense, returning counter strikes to the white driver’s rain of fists, she would ultimately suffer a loss this day, which meant jail and a fifty-two dollar fine. After the arrest of eighteen-year-old Mary Louise Smith on October 21, 1955 black Montgomery had had enough.

Out of Montgomery’s black population, which numbered nearly fifty thousand, more than half of all the black women laboring outside of their homes found paid work as domestics in white homes, far beyond the economic safe haven of labor protection laws or a union. Unable to afford private transportation due to their shamefully low wages, black domestics relied heavily upon the city’s public transportation system. Herein, as a directly affected group, black domestic workers became the all-important foot soldiers of the Montgomery bus boycott. The thoroughly networked social lives of domestic workers proved to be an invaluable resource for the success of the boycott. As seasoned guerrillas, black women clandestinely transported food, items, and, most critical to the boycott, key information gradually gleaned from white conversations eavesdropped upon.

by Farah Tanis, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Black Women’s Blueprint.

“The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witness of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism…. Much that you have done would seem improbable to those who do not know you as I know you.” – Frederick Douglass, Letter to Harriet Tubman, 1869.

As Harriet Tubman’s image is being considered for placement on the twenty-dollar bill, and as the upcoming presidential election draws near, robust conversations have arisen around the redistribution of wealth, U.S. geographical borders and citizenship, education, reproductive justice and the war on women. As many wait with baited breath for the next move by 2016 presidential hopefuls, those of us in feminist and racial justice circles wonder whether issues or policies on gender violence, the persistent feminization of poverty, the growing Black female prison population and other intersectional women’s rights issues will be meaningfully debated. We wonder how related policy plans, proposals, and promises will affect the everyday lives of some of the individuals most impacted by these issues—Black girls and women living in neighborhoods ravaged by poverty, their bodily safety routinely threatened and weighed down by a culture of silence around both systemic violence and intra-community rape, domestic and dating violence, human trafficking and sexual abuse. In these under-recognized communities, many Black girls and adolescent women are in a constant state of witnessing intergenerational struggles of abuse. Too many have already internalized violence as normal, acceptable, and inevitable facets of their lives.
As these same girls attend public schools, reading outdated history books with few references to women of African, Indigenous, Latina or Asian descent, there is one woman whose story the educational system has deemed allowable to teach—Harriet Tubman. These girls, and all our children—whether they attend predominantly neglected Black neighborhood schools or by the luck of the draw, find themselves in better resourced educational spaces—are allowed to learn about the heroism of Harriet Tubman who got slaves to freedom. They are allowed to learn about the Underground Railroad.

There is no doubt that Harriet Tubman, our kin known as the “Black Moses”, was indeed a phenomenal woman and a force to be reckoned with. Depending on the source, this foremother made as many as nineteen missions to bring nearly 300 men, women, and children to freedom in the North and Canada with the help of safe houses on the Underground Railroad. Moreover, in the post-war era, Harriet Tubman also struggled for women’s suffrage.

Young Black girls learning of this herstory are certainly entitled to access this narrative as well as the positive imagery of Black womanhood Harriet Tubman offers. We have known for generations that Harriet Tubman was an escaped slave, an abolitionist and a veritable heroine. Yet, it is not until now that our vigorous documentation and research has uncovered another important and untold story about Harriet Tubman—that she was also a survivor of domestic violence.

Black Women, Domestic Violence and the Fallacy of Public and Private Domains

Harriet Tubman’s legacy of resistance did not begin and end in the so-called public sphere. Like many Black women and girls today threatened by loved ones in private spaces on a daily basis, Harriet Tubman’s fight was also quite literally on the home front. Her fight was in that place we call the private sphere, in her intimate partnership and relationship, in her married life with first husband John Tubman a free Black man, in 1844.

Accounts of Harriet Tubman’s story of survivorship give us a glimpse into the incidents we as activists, we as survivors and children of survivors recognize as intimate partner violence. In her 1995 Contemporary Black Biography, Mary Wainwright writes that “in 1849, John Tubman threatened to sell her [Harriet] “down the river” into the Deep South [into slavery], a possibility that had terrorized many of her dreams and waking thoughts”... and “Tubman left her husband in the middle of the night, afraid he would carry through his threat.” Such accounts trigger images of women with required safety plans. They conjure up images of girls hushed and frenzied and the packing of just the necessary items at the last critical moment. These accounts also conjure up images of our mothers fleeing on foot or by midnight cab to safe houses with only the clothes on their backs.

Domestic violence is commonly defined as a civil rights and human rights violation. It is defined as any act, attempt or threat of force by an intimate partner against another. The abuse can include physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological actions or threats or actions to control another’s safety, movement or freedom.

Public accounts by researchers and historians such as “marriage to a free man did not automatically bring Harriet freedom”, and “always in the background was the fear of being sold and sent to work on cotton plantations in the Deep South, regarded by the majority of slaves as a death sentence,” should give us pause. The bifurcation of women of color’s lives as public and private was and still is rarely ever the reality. As argued by anti-racist activist Kaitlyn Newman in 2015 “John Tubman’s threats rested on a rationale perpetuated by the racist nation-state of the day. That he was able to make such threats, the type and intensity of his abuse of Harriet, was mediated and based on the same type of violence—enslavement perpetuated at the same time, by the state”. The nature of Harriet Tubman’s abuse and her husband's threats were generated from the same rationale as chattel slavery, still legal in the nation-state at the time. His abuse was codified in law, not unlike the codification of negligence today that allows domestic violence to continue.

The belief that Black women's lives and bedrooms were ever isolated from the long reach of the state under slavery is false, and the silence that still prevails around all forms of violence against Black women today is extraordinarily egregious. Given a current social context where the public sphere consistently and violently encroaches on the Black private sphere—Black lives and Black homes, these violations of Black women and so called private struggles are also public and always inherently political. These violations have always caught the attention of the state, of neighbors and community, yet there continues to be a refusal to deal with intimate partner violence as important public matters to be accorded priority at the community level and in presidential and political debates on policy and solutions.

The Presidential Elections: The Private, Public and Political

Unless the millions of survivors of gender violence are prioritized in this upcoming presidential election and followed by meaningful policy change, they will continue to face the same daily threats to personal and economic security that Harriet Tubman did.

Just as accounts by domestic violence advocates tell us it takes on average seven times and on average seven attempts by a survivor longing for freedom, to finally, permanently take flight, Harriet Tubman after leaving her husband, John Tubman and getting to Pennsylvania went back for John Tubman, but found he had already taken another wife. Her return to him is a complicated phenomenon requiring a full understanding of the often life-or-death elements which motivate survivors to go back to the ones who harm them.

Harriet Tubman’s response to the discovery of John Tubman’s new wife is also instructive. What would it look like for survivors in our midst, rather than deliver themselves unto what might well be their deaths because of the scarcity of real options, to be able to finally say “…if he could do without me, I could without him"? This was the watershed moment that defined the work of Harriet Tubman. As divulged by historian Mintz and McNeil in Digital History, 2015, “it was then that Harriet determined to give her life to brave deeds,” …”and with her simple brave motto, "I can't die but once," she began the work which has made her Moses—the deliverer of her people.”

Each October, Domestic Violence Month, Black Women’s Blueprint chooses to amplify its celebration of this moment as illustrative of Harriet Tubman as a full and complex human being with a personal narrative inextricably linked to the broader, political narrative surrounding her life and the lives of women and girls throughout our communities. That personal narrative is also linked to the broader, political, and racial narratives surrounding Black men in our communities and how we single-handedly—and collectively—choose to respond when they commit violence against Black women and girls right in our homes.
We demand our presidential hopefuls consider these narratives and increase their focus on intersectional women’s rights concerns like poverty, the lack of access to affordable housing, immigration protections and more access for communities to resources to develop culturally-specific practices that equally center the most vulnerable. The idea that gendered and so-called private issues like domestic violence have virtually been left out of the debates right now, should also be part of the debate. To echo the words of Sevonna Brown, Human Rights Project Coordinator at Black Women’s Blueprint “candidates cannot keep pocketing and back-seating Black women’s realities!” and “…what costs might we face if we go into this next presidential elections phase ignoring or riding out the persistent historical amnesia about how Black women live and how we vote in this country?

By honoring and acknowledging all the facets of Harriet Tubman’s life, we honor and acknowledge all facets of our own and place them as central to contemporary political agendas. None of our stories should be forgotten or erased. We are “calling-in” community to delve further within our own individual and social experiences and discover what the historical and contemporary truths are about domestic violence in Black communities. Honor the past that is ever present. Honor what it takes for survivors to take flight to freedom and recall the journey by Harriet Tubman. When she crossed the border into the free state of Pennsylvania, it is documented that she looked at her hands attached to her Black body which had been brutalized by slavery and said “I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.”

Photo: iStockPhoto

Farah Tanis is Co-founder, Executive Director of Black Women’s Blueprint and launched and Chairs the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the U.S. ever to focus on Black women and their historical and contemporary experiences with sexual assault. She created the theatrical production Mother Tongue Monologues and founded the Museum of Women's Resistance (MoWRe), an international Site of Conscience since 2013. She is a 2012 U.S. Human Rights Institute Fellow and current member of the USHRN Task Force on the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. She recently became a Move to End Violence Cohort 3 Movement Maker

by Lynn Yaeger

“I feel that I have the right to have just as much as a man. There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights and colored women not theirs, the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before,” the abolitionist Sojourner Truth said in 1867.

by Kimberly Denise Williams

Hollywood’s issue with diversity is well documented—from its employment practices to the final images we see on screen. Even more, when we see black images taking center stage, they are often pre-Civil Rights Movement roles showcasing us as slaves or servants. There seems to be two strains of thought on why this is the case, and they are not mutually exclusive. For one, few people will argue against the blatant racism that existed then in comparison to the more complicated portrayals that could be included in a movie portraying the struggles Black people face today. Thus, it is easier to show racial tensions prior to the 1960s. Additionally, it is also easier for mainstream audiences to see Black people in subservient roles. This imbalance in portrayals has caused many to argue for more films focusing on contemporary representation of Black lives, and to dismiss the onslaught of movies—often greatly written, directed and acted—that focus on slaves and servants.

by Saaraa Bailey


There is perhaps no greater time to consider the intersectionality of blackness and womanhood, than the transition from Black History Month to Women’s History Month.

by Bee Quammie


As we celebrate what’s left of Black History Month and look forward to Women’s History Month, it’s important to remember that Black women around the globe have made incredible contributions to world history. From Brazil to the United Kingdom and everywhere else, Black women have done incredible things, created incredible things, and have been incredible people. Take a passport-free journey through time and geography and get to know about 5 such women.

by Diana Veiga

Life is hard. It can be extra hard for a Black girl who will one day become a Black woman. What do you tell her about this thing called life and how to navigate the twists and turns? What pearls, what gems, what lessons will help her along the way? Here are 10 powerful quotes by powerful Black women whose lives and accomplishments have been able to light a path for the rest of us. Teach Black girls about these Black women (and others of course), teach them these quotes, and the lessons within them.

by Ariel Williams

Beyoncé got it right when she proclaimed that girls ran the world. The last couple of years have proved that those are indeed Black girls. From running successful adolescent businesses to being the youngest ever TV talk show host, our girls are changing the world with confidence and we’re delighted to highlight them today.

In 1838 when William Hendry of Greene County, Tennessee drew up his will, he included this passage: “It is my will and desire that Nancy McEfee have $300 in place of a Mulatto girl named Delfey [that] I once gave her as a legatee and McEfee gave her back and gave her mother a bill of sale for the girl that she might have [a] chance to free her for which above named $300 McEfee holds some obligation to me to be paid at my death.” [McEfee sometimes appears as McFee.]

Simone Biles was not even born when Shannon Miller was winning all of her world and Olympic medals.

But Biles, born in 1997, shortly after Miller collected her gold medals as part of the “Magnificent Seven” at the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games and about two years after Miller won the last of her nine world medals, needed no history lesson to understand what it means to be passing her in the record books.

With books you have the ability to create for your child new worlds and show them new possibilities. That is why the books we read to them are so important. Teach your children about tenacity, courage,and brilliance with the stories of these women.

The Boston Globe  - Five or so years ago, Vivian Johnson, a retired professor of education at Boston University, was poking through records in the Massachusetts Historical Society — she loves to do research — looking for information about how African-Americans educated their children in the 17th century, when she came across something that would occupy her for the next five or so years.

For some reason, far too many give comedians a pass when they, too, have the ability to perpetuate dangerous tropes that shape our consciousness. Comics, particularly those with large platforms, can teach us and stretch our thinking, but they can also wield their power to marginalize, stereotype and silence. And when called out, they often feel no need to offer more than "it's just jokes" to cover their irresponsibility.

This weekend, the joke was on Black women when comedian Leslie Jones, a Black woman herself, made her first appearance on 'Saturday Night Live.'

We're nearing the end of Women's History month, but we want to make sure that the learning about Black women's histories continues. We've selected 15 historical texts to help you delve deeper into Black women's past.

The contributions of Black women to shaping and changing the world for the better are often minimized. At every moment in history, Black women have worked alongside their more famous male conterparts. We've assembled a list of just a few of the women for whom we are grateful.





Ella Baker



Ella Baker began her involvement with the NAACP in 1940. She worked as a field secretary and then served as director of branches from 1943 until 1946.

In 1957, Baker moved to Atlanta to help organize Martin Luther King's new organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). She also ran a voter registration campaign called the Crusade for Citizenship.

On February 1, 1960, a group of black college students from North Carolina A&T University refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina where they had been denied service.

Baker left the SCLC after the Greensboro sit-ins. She wanted to assist the new student activists because she viewed young, emerging activists as a resource and an asset to the movement. Miss Baker organized a meeting at Shaw University for the student leaders of the sit-ins in April 1960. From that meeting, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee -- SNCC -- was born.


Josephine Baker



Not only was Josephine Baker a beloved entertainer who rose to fame on the stages of Paris because racism held her back in the U.S., but she visited the states in the '50s and '60s to help fight segregation. She even adopted children of different ethnicities and religions to create a multicultural family she called "The Rainbow Tribe."


Daisy Bates



Daisy Bates was born on November 11, 1914, in Huttig, Arkansas. She married journalist Christopher Bates and they operated a weekly African-American newspaper, the Arkansas State Press. Bates became president of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP and played a crucial role in the fight against segregation. In 1952, she headed the Arkansas branch of the NAACP and helped in the desegregation of schools in Little Rock. She documented in her book The Long Shadow of Little Rock: A Memoir. She died in 1999.


Mary McLeod Bethune



Mary McLeod Bethune was a racial justice activist who sought to improve educational opportunities for African-Americans. She is best known for starting a school for African-American students in Daytona Beach, Florida, that eventually became Bethune-Cookman University. She also served as both president of the National Association of Colored Women and founder of the National Council of Negro Women.




Beverly Bond



It was only five years ago that the model-turned-DJ created the nonprofit organization Black Girls Rock! Her goal was to build the self-esteem of young women of color by offering mentorship and enrichment through arts programs. Last fall the organization teamed up with Black Entertainment Television to create a Black Girls Rock! show that drew 2.5 million viewers and honored trailblazers such as Ruby Dee, Missy Elliot and Iyanla Vanzant.


Elaine Brown



In April 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior, Elaine Brown attended her first meeting of the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Panther Party. Brown assumed power from Huey Newton, founder and minister of defense, in 1974, when Newton fled the country, appointing Brown as his successor. Brown maintained control until 1977, when Newton returned from his self-imposed exile in Cuba to face the murder charges of which he was later acquitted.

Brown's leadership was met with hostility by the predominantly male rank-and-file membership, butBrown continued to develop and expand services to the community, such as the free-breakfast program, free legal and medical clinics, and the Oakland Community Learning Center, which was recognized by the city of Oakland for academic excellence. (Source)


Majora Carter



Carter received a MacArthur "genius grant" for creating green-collar job training and placement in urban areas. She also had the vision to see the Bronx River, near her blighted Hunts Point neighborhood in New York City, as a resource to revitalize her community and create green jobs. Her work was instrumental in the opening of Hunts Point Riverside Park in 2007, the area's first waterfront park in 60 years. Today she heads an eponymous consulting firm focused on urban revitalization and green-collar jobs.


Shirley Chisholm



Shirley Chisholm was the first black woman to be elected to Congress, winning in New York in 1968 and retiring from office in 1983. She campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, but is best known for her work on several Congressional committees throughout her career. A feisty politician, Chisholm has also been recognized in popular culture and in the political and academic worlds for her symbolic importance and career achievements.


Septima Clark



A pioneer in grassroots citizenship education, Septima Clark was called the ‘‘Mother of the Movement’’ and the epitome of a ‘‘community teacher, intuitive fighter for human rights and leader of her unlettered and disillusioned people." For more than 30 years, she taught throughout South Carolina. She participated in a class action lawsuit filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) that led to pay equity for black and white teachers in South Carolina. In 1956 South Carolina passed a statute that prohibited city and state employees from belonging to civil rights organizations. After 40 years of teaching, Clark’s employment contract was not renewed when she refused to resign from the NAACP.

By the time of her firing in1956, Clark had already begun to conduct workshops during her summer vacations at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, a grassroots education center dedicated to social justice.

When the state of Tennessee forced Highlander to close in 1961, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) established the Citizenship Education Program (CEP), modeled on Clark’s citizenship workshops. (source)


Anna Julia Cooper



Born in 1858 in North Carolina to her enslaved mother, Hannah Stanley Haywood, and her white slaveholder, Anna Julia Cooper spent her lifetime of over a century redefining the limitations and opportunities for women of color in a society set up for their disempowerment and subjugation. A distinguished scholar and educator, Cooper saw the status and agency of black women as central to the equality and progress of the nation. She famously wrote in her 1892 book A Voice from the South , “only the BLACK WOMAN can say when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.” She fought tirelessly throughout her life to re-center and uplift the voice of black women in pursuit of a more just society for everyone. (source)


Angela Davis



Angela Davis, born on January 26, 1944, in Birmingham, Alabama, became a master scholar who studied at the Sorbonne. She joined the U.S. Communist Party and was jailed for charges related to a prison outbreak, though ultimately cleared. Known for books like Women, Race, & Class, she has worked as a professor and activist who advocates gender equity, prison reform and alliances across color lines. (source)


Marian Wright Edelman



Marian Wright Edelman became the first African American woman to pass the bar exam in Mississippi. She is a graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School. She directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi. Edelman has written numerous works on racial inequality, and founded the Children's Defense Fund in which she has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans.


Amy Ashwood Garvey



Amy Ashwood, feminist, playwright, lecturer, and pan-Africanist, was one of the founding members of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Jamaica, and the first wife of Marcus Garvey. Ashwood was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, and spent several years of her childhood in Panama. She returned to Jamaica to attend high school and met Marcus Garvey at a debating society program in July 1914, when she was seventeen years old. Ashwood became the first secretary and a member of the board of management of the newly formed U.N.I.A. in 1914 - 1915. She worked with Garvey in organizing the inaugural meeting in Collegiate Hall in Kingston, the weekly Tuesday night elocution meetings, and the office that was soon established in a house on Charles Street rented by the Ashwood family. She also helped to establish the Ladies' auxiliary wing of the movement and was involved in early plans to build an industrial school. (source)


Fannie Lou Hamer



Fannie Lou Hamer helped register Blacks to vote in Mississippi and worked for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which focused on racial segregation and injustice in the South. She was instrumental in organizing Mississippi Freedom Summer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and later became the Vice-Chair of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, attending the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in that capacity. Her plain-spoken manner and fervent belief in the Biblical righteousness of her cause gained her a reputation as an electrifying speaker and constant activist of civil rights.


Dorothy Height



A young leader in the National Youth Movement of the New Deal era and a YWCA caseworker in Harlem in 1937 Dorothy Height caught the attention of Mary McLeod Bethune who encouraged her to join the National Council of Negro Women's effort to seek equal rights, pay and education for women. She joined the national staff of the YWCA in 1944 and remained active there until 1977; her official affiliation with NCNW continued through the late 1990s, including serving as its president in 1957.

Height's leadership work in civil rights progressed from her early work in Harlem and a first of many meetings with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930s, to encouraging President Eisenhower to desegregate schools in the 1950s, speaking alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., and, in the 1960s, organizing integrated women partnerships with a public presence in the schools, known as 'Wednesdays in Mississippi.' Her humanitarian work continued in later decades at the international level as well, advising and traveling with programs sponsored by the Council to the White House Conference, UNESCO, the Institute on Human Relations of the American Jewish Committee, USAID, and the United States Information Agency, among others. (source)


Claudia Jones



Claudia Jones, feminist, black nationalist, political activist, community leader, communist and journalist, has been described as the mother of the Notting Hill carnival. The diversity of her political affiliations clearly illustrated her multifaceted approach to the struggle for equal rights in the 20th century.

For over 30 years she lived in New York and during this time became an active member of the American Communist party, an organisation in which her journalistic and community leadership skills were maximised. By 1948 she had become the editor of Negro Affairs for the party's paper the Daily Worker and had evolved into an accomplished speaker on human and civil rights.

In 1955 she was deported from the US and given asylum in England, where she spent her remaining years working with London's African-Caribbean community. She founded and edited The West Indian Gazette which despite financial problems remained crucial in her fight for equal opportunities for black people.

She chaired the CPUSA's National Women's Commission, was a leader in the National Peace Council and was the editor of Negro Affairs, the publication of the party's National Negro Commission.


Flo Kennedy



Flo Kennedy was one of only a handful of black, women students admitted to Columbia Law School in the first half of the 20th century. She did not matriculate until she was in her 30s, and after graduation she jumped feet first into burgeoning women's movement. Flo became fierce defender of the rights of women known for her brash sense of humor and no holds barred conversation style. She was a founding member of the National Organization of Women, but soon left because of organization disagreements. Shortly after Flo founded the Feminist Party which went on to nominate Shirley Chisholm for President in 1972. She traveled the country speaking on feminist issues until her death in 2000.


Pauli Murray



In 1938 she began a campaign to enter the all-white University of North Carolina. With the support of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). However, it was not until 1951 that Floyd McKissick became the first African American to be accepted by the University of North Carolina. aIn 1941 Murray enrolled at the Howard University law school with the intention of becoming a civil rights lawyer. The following year she joined with George Houser, James Farmer and Bayard Rustin, to form the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

After Murray graduated from Howard University in 1944 she wanted to enroll at Harvard University to continue her law studies. In her application for a Rosenwald Fellowship, she listed Harvard as her first choice. She was awarded the prestigious fellowship but after the award had been announced, Harvard Law School rejected her because of her gender. Murray went to the University of California Boalt School of Law where she received a degree in law.

In 1956 Murray published Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family, biography of her grandparents, and their struggle with racial prejudice and a poignant portrayal of her hometown of Durham. In 1960 Murray travelled to Ghana to explore her African cultural roots. When she returned President John F. Kennedy appointed her to his Committee on Civil and Political Rights. In the early 1960s Murray worked closely with Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King but was critical of the way that men dominated the leadership of these civil rights organizations.

In 1977 Murray became the first African American woman to become a Episcopal priest. Pauli Murray died of cancer in Pittsburgh on 1st July, 1985. (source)


Diane Nash



Born in 1938, in Chicago, Illinois, Nash left Chicago to attend Howard University in Washington, D.C., but transferred a year later to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where she majored in English.

In 1960 Nash attended the founding meeting of SNCC in Raleigh, North Carolina. In 1961 SNCC began supporting 10 students in Rock Hill, South Carolina, who were involved in protest activities and refused to post bail after being arrested. Shortly after arriving in Rock Hill, Nash and three other activists were also jailed for requesting service at a segregated lunch counter.

During the spring of 1961 Nash played a crucial role in sustaining Freedom Rides initiated by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). From her base in Nashville, she coordinated student efforts to continue the rides into Mississippi and served as a liaison between the press and the United States Department of Justice. Tensions developed between King and SNCC members, including Nash, when King refused to participate in the Freedom Rides himself.

After her leadership role in the Freedom Rides, Nash became head of SNCC’s direct action campaigns during the summer of 1961. (source)


Rosa Parks



Rosa Parks's refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus led to an organized boycott and the city's removal of bus segregation. By the time she lit the match for the Montgomery Movement, Rosa had spent years working with the NAACP. She was an investigator for the brutal rape of Recy Taylor. Rosa was far more radical than she has been historically portrayed. She was a life long activist for the struggle for Civil Rights in the United States.


Jo Ann Robinson



In Montgomery Alabama, Robinson was active in the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and the Women’s Political Council (WPC). In 1949 Robinson suffered a humiliating experience on a nearly empty public bus, when the driver ordered her off for having sat in the fifth row. When she became WPC president in 1950, Robinson made the city’s segregated bus seating one of the top priorities of the organization. The WPC made repeated complaints about seating practices and driver conduct to the Montgomery City Commission. After the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, Robinson informed the city’s mayor that a bus boycott might ensue if bus service did not improve, but negotiations had yielded little success by late 1955. After Rosa Parks’ arrest in December 1955, Robinson seized the opportunity to put the long-considered protest into motion. Late that night, she, two students, and John Cannon, chairman of the Business Department at Alabama State, mimeographed and distributed approximately 52,500 leaflets calling for a boycott of the buses.




Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin



Ruffin was born August 31, 1842 into one of Boston's leading black families. In 1858, at the age of 15, she became the wife of George Lewis Ruffin, the first African American to graduate from Harvard Law School. During the Civil War Ruffin was involved in various civil rights causes, charity work, and the women's suffrage movement. In 1879 she established the Boston Kansas Relief Association, a charity organization that provided food and clothing to black Bostonians who were migrating to Kansas. Her philanthropic work brought her in contact with many eminent white and black leaders and her close friends included William Lloyd Garrison, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Booker T. Washington.

From 1890 to 1897 Ruffin served as the editor and publisher of Woman's Era, the first newspaper published by and for African American women. It was used to highlight the achievements of African American women and to champion black women's rights.

In 1894 she organized the Women's Era Club, an advocacy group for black women, with the help of her daughter Florida Ridely and Maria Baldwin, a Boston school principal.

Ruffin died on March 13, 1924. (source)


Maria Stewart



Born free in Boston, Maria Stewart was orphaned at five years old and hired out as a domestic. As a young woman, Maria met David Walker, author of AN APPEAL TO THE COLORED PEOPLE OF THE WORLD, a controversial and well-read treatise against slavery. After Walker's death in 1830, Maria carried on his legacy. She wrote articles for THE LIBERATOR, an abolitionist newspaper, published anti-slavery tracts, and became the first American woman to speak in public.

Maria, who was largely self-taught, stressed the importance of morality and self-improvement to her audiences. In addition to religion, she insisted that blacks pursue education. When "knowledge would begin to flow," she wrote, "the chains of slavery and ignorance would melt like wax before flames." Maria went on to become a public school teacher in New York and the founder of schools in Baltimore and D.C. Her dedication to fighting black oppression through teaching, writing, and speaking was relentless. (source)


Mary Church Terrell



In 1884, Mary received her bachelor’s degree at Oberlin College in Ohio. She was one of the first African American women to be awarded a college degree. She went on to teach at a black high school in Washington and then at Wilberforce College in Ohio. Terrell decided to leave the United States and went to study in Europe for two years. She became fluent in French, German, and Italian.

Terrell was appointed to the District of Columbia Board of Education in 1895. She was the first black woman in the United States to hold such an honored position. She was a charter member of the National Association of Colored Women and became the first president of the organization in 1897. Terrell helped in finding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She founded the association with Josephine Ruffin in 1896. Mary Church Terrell became well known for her resistance of racial segregation and her support of women’s suffrage.

In 1918, Terrell resigned as a French instructor from Howard University. She actively accepted a position for a special department under the Playground and Recreation Association of America. It was for the war and navy department commission on training camp activities. (source)


Sojourner Truth



Former slave, abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Sojourner Truth, born Isabella, spent the last twenty-six years of her life in Michigan. Truth was bought and sold four times and spent the first twenty-nine years of her life as a slave in New York, performing demanding physical labor.

Truth joined the religious revivals occurring in New York State in the early 19th century and became a powerful and charismatic speaker. In 1843, she had a spiritual breakthrough and declared that the Spirit called on her to preach the truth and gave her a new name, Sojourner Truth. Although she never learned to read or write, with the help of a friend she published her life and beliefs in 1850 in the Narrative of Sojourner Truth, which brought her national recognition.

In 1851, Truth went on a nation-wide lecture tour. She gave her most famous speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” at a woman’s rights conference in Akron, Ohio, in 1851, where all of the other speakers were men.

When the Civil War started, Truth traveled through many states in support of the Union and encouraged many young men to join the Union cause. After the war ended, Truth met with Abraham Lincoln to thank him for helping to end slavery. While in Washington, D.C., Truth lobbied against segregation laws, playing an instrumental role in desegregating streetcars. While in D.C., she helped recently freed slaves become settled in a new life. She also worked in Virginia for a while, helping freed slaves find jobs. She advised them to use their freedom in responsible ways and prove their value to society through industrious work. (source)


Harriet Tubman



As one of American history’s most prominent figures, Harriet Tubman was responsible for rescuing around 300 former slaves from the South and escorting them to freedom via the underground railroads that led to Maryland. At one point, a $40,000 reward was being offered for her arrest. Tubman was also a spy during her life. She died in New York in 1913.


Ida B. Wells-Barnett



Ida Bell Wells-Barnett’s life was dedicated to ending horrible injustices against African-Americans. She traveled the country, speaking and writing about civil rights issues, unfair laws, and crimes against blacks. As more and more civil rights laws were ignored by society in the late 1800s, she became increasingly involved in politics to stop the trend of social injustice. She was instrumental in the fight against lynching, proving that these acts were essentially murders of innocent black men, women, and children, and boldly demanded that their white murderers be held responsible for their crimes. Later in life, she also founded or was involved in the creation of several organizations encouraging the advancement of women and other minorities. (source)


Maya Wiley



After years working for civil rights and social-justice organizations that include the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Open Society Institute, Wiley started the Center for Social Inclusion to address the public policies that have led to socioeconomic disparities. The organization, which works to dismantle structural racism and inequity, is currently collaborating with black farmers in South Carolina to help build farmers markets, as well as with education advocates in Mississippi to help shape funding decisions.


Kimberly Foster is the founder and editor of For Harriet. Email or Follow @KimberlyNFoster