PEOPLE: Women’s History Month 2023: Pays tribute to all historic women whose successes and examples made America a great country
Contributed
March 31, 2023
WASHINGTON (AGN.News) – Women’s History Month 2023 supports the spirit of women who have demonstrated the wisdom and experience needed to make their communities a place where positive interaction leads to greatness.
Many of these hard working women hope their actions would lead to the next generation of accomplished women. Their positive actions would become a model for still another generation of accomplished women.
These accomplished women understood the future depends on having role models. Therefore, we’re going to highlight some of these role models that have inspired young girls to have goals in life and to aim high to accomplish those goals and to keep hope alive everyday.
Women in sports, teachers, and leaders
Venus Ebony Starr Williams (born June 17, 1980) is an American professional tennis player. A former world No. 1 in both singles and doubles, Williams has won seven Grand Slam singles titles, five at Wimbledon and two at the US Open. She is widely regarded as one of the all-time greats of the sport.
Anna M. Dumas, the first female postmaster in the state of Louisiana appointed by the President of the United States in 1872 in Covington, Louisiana.
Minnie M. (Geddings) Cox (1869–1933) was an American teacher who was appointed the first Black postmaster in Mississippi, following closely behind Anna M. Dumas from Covington, Louisiana.
She married Wellington Cox and together they opened the Delta Penny Savings Bank, one of the earliest Black-owned banks in the state of Mississippi.
They also founded one of the first Black-owned insurance companies in the United States to offer whole life insurance, the Mississippi Life Insurance Company.
Dr. Lisa DeNell Cook, PhD, (born 1964) is an American economist who has served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors since May 23, 2022.
She is the first African American woman and first woman of color to sit on the Board. Before her appointment to the Federal Reserve, she was elected to the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Alethia Tanner, or Alethia “Lethe” Browning, (1781–1864) was an American educator. She was a leader in the African American community of the District of Columbia in the early 1800s.
Tanner is known for freeing 18 people from slavery and providing support for the creation of Washington DC’s first school for free Black children.
Death of Civil Rights Leaders
Harriette Vyda Simms Moore (1902-1952) was an American educator who graduated from Bethune Cookman College, a historically Black college in Daytona Beach, with an Associate of Arts degree in 1941 and a Bachelor of Science degree in 1950.
Harriette Moore was a civil rights worker. She was the wife of Harry T. Moore, who founded the first branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Brevard County, Florida.
Harry T. Moore and his wife, Harriette Moore, also an educator, were the victims of a bombing of their home in Mims, Florida, on Christmas night 1951 by white supremacists.
As the local hospital in Titusville would not treat Blacks, he died on the way to the nearest one that would, a Black hospital in Sanford, Florida, about 30 miles to the northwest.
His wife, Harriette Moore, died from her wounds nine days later, on January 3, 1952, at the same hospital in Sanford. She was the first woman who was murdered along with her husband in the modern Civil Rights Movement. They were called martyrs as the first couple to be killed for civil rights.
The murder of the Moores was the first assassination as a result of white terrorism in the modern civil rights era. It happen during the Civil Rights Movement of the early 1950s and the only time both a husband and a wife were killed for their activism.
Ida B. Wells: Civil Rights Leader
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) was an American investigative journalist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Wells dedicated her lifetime to combating prejudice and violence, the fight for African American equality, especially that of women, and became arguably the most famous Black woman in the United States of her time.
Wells co-owned and wrote for the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper. Her reporting in the newspaper covered incidents of racial segregation and inequality.
Ida B. Wells was a respected voice in the African American community in the South that people listened to. She was active in women’s rights and the women’s suffrage movement, establishing several notable women’s organizations.
Ida B. Wells Rewards and Honors
In 1988, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame (NWHF) in Seneca Falls, New York. In August that year, she was also inducted into the Chicago Women’s Hall of Fame.
In 2002, Molefi Kete Asante included Wells on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.
In 2011, Wells was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame for her writings.
On February 1, 1990, at the start of Black History Month in the U.S., the U.S. Postal Service dedicated a 25¢ stamp commemorating Wells in a ceremony at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
The Ida B. Wells stamp, designed by Thomas Blackshear II, features a portrait of Wells illustrated from a composite of photographs of her taken during the mid-1890s.
Wells is the 25th African American entry – and fourth African American woman – on a U.S. postage stamp. She is the 13th in the Postal Service’s Black Heritage series.
American Women: Female Role Models
Mabel Norris Reese (1914-1995) was a journalist and an advocate for civil rights in Lake County, Florida.
Hattie McDaniel (1893-1952) was an American actress, singer-songwriter, and comedian. For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939), she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, becoming the first African American to win an Oscar.
She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1975, and in 2006 she became the first Black Oscar winner honored with a U.S. postage stamp
Queenie Mae Brown (1931-2019), was a graduate of business school and became an expert in the operation of a PBX business telephone system.
After finishing school, she became an expert on the PBX system of multiline telephone systems. This type of system is typically used in business environments, encompassing systems ranging in technology from the key telephone system (KTS) to the private branch exchange (PBX).
To add to her many career choices in business, Brown went on to nursing school, finished, and became a healthcare professional until she retired with honors.
Brown became a modern example for single mothers, hard working and exemplary. She devoted her life to spiritual pursuits and to her patients for decades. Her inspirational and memorable words were, “You should try to live eighty-eight years!”
Anne Elise Thompson (born July 8, 1934) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. She was the first female and first African American federal judge in New Jersey.
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American attorney and author who served as the first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017 as the wife of President Barack Obama. She was the first African American woman to serve in this position.
Judy Clay (1938-2001) was an American soul and gospel singer, who achieved greatest success as a member of two recording duos in the 1960s. She was the first African American woman to sing in an interracial singing duo. She partnered with Billy Vera to tour across America.
Women Leaders: Education and Politics
Mary Jane McLeod Bethune (1875-1955) was an American educator, philanthropist, humanitarian, womanist, and civil rights activist. Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935.
She established the organization’s flagship journal Aframerican Women’s Journal, and presided as president or leader for a myriad of African American women’s organizations including the National Association for Colored Women and the National Youth Administration’s Negro Division.
Mary McLeod Bethune is the founder and president of Bethune Cookman College (now University) in Daytona Beach, Florida. The university has become a leading HBCU in America’s education system.
Dr. Jill Tracy Biden, EdD, MEd, MA, (born June 3, 1951) is an American educator and the current first lady of the United States since January 20, 2021, as the wife of President Joe Biden.
She was the second lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017 when her husband was vice president. Since 2009, Biden has been a professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College, and is thought to be the first wife of a vice president or president to hold a paying job during her husband’s tenure.
Kamala Devi Harris (born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th and current vice president of the United States.
Harris is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well as the first African American and first Asian American vice president.
Harris is a member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the attorney general of California from 2011 to 2017 and as a United States senator representing California from 2017 to 2021.
Women’s History Month Supports Women
These are just a fraction of the exemplary women who have reflected the leadership skills needed to help America’s people reach their full potential in all areas of life. History has reminded everyone of us of the role of women in the development of America’s industrial, commercial, and personal strength.
Women have continued to show their leadership skills in every aspect of life. Go to your local auto parts store, the manager is a woman. Go to the grocery store, hardware store, paint store, medical clinic, TV station, bank, library, construction site, university, city hall, or the White House – you will see the leadership skills of women on full display.
The story of women in America is the history of women in America. Every day of every year should be celebrated by every person as Women’s History Day in America and beyond.
Women’s History Month deserves to be recognized for the honor and respect due women because of their many sacrifices. They’ve led the way to good and raised their children to be good citizens. They’ve shown exemplary attitudes and skills for the next generation of women to follow.
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