Black
History Month is the time to honor the role and achievements of
African-Americans in the United States. While some groundbreaking heroes are
well-known, there are many unsung heroes worth celebrating, particularly
African-American women. Here, are 10 African-American women whose
accomplishments and tireless efforts transformed America.
Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler
Dr.
Crumpler was the first African-American woman physician in the United States.
Born in 1831, Dr. Crumpler first worked as a nurse in Massachusetts between
1852 and 1860, She was accepted to New England Female Medical College and earned an M.D. in
1864, according to Time.
She practiced medicine in Boston and Richmond, Virginia, primarily working with
the poor, who had limited access to medical care. In 1883, Dr. Crumpler
published a renowned book, Book of Medical Discourses In Two Parts, which
many believe is the first medical text written by an African-American author. see more photos below
Claudette Colvin
Nine months before Rosa Parks refused
to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama,
a then 15-year-old Claudette Colvin did the same. On March 2,
1955, Colvin was taking the bus home from high school when the driver
ordered her to give up her seat, according to
NPR. Colvin refused, saying she paid her fare and it was her
constitutional right, but was then arrested by two police officers.
Colvin later became the main witness in
the federal lawsuit Browder v. Gayle, which ended segregation on
public transportation in Alabama.
Irene Morgan Kirkaldy
And
before both Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks, there was Irene Morgan Kirkaldy.
In July 1944, Morgan Kirkaldy was arrested after she refused to give up her bus
seat to a white passenger in Virginia, the New York
Times reports. She was convicted in a County Circuit Court, but
appealed the decision to the Virginia Supreme Court and later to the Supreme
Court, PBS reports.
With the help of lawyers from the NAACP, including Thurgood Marshall, the
Supreme Court ruled in
favor of Morgan Kirkaldy on June 3, 1946. While Southern states
largely ignored the ruling, Morgan Kirkaldy's case was a pioneer in civil
rights law. Morgan Kirkaldy received the Presidential Citizens Medal from
President Bill Clinton in 2001, according to
the Times.
Ella Baker
Baker
was a civil rights activist who worked for a number of civil rights
organizations throughout her lifetime. After graduating
as valedictorian from Shaw University in North Carolina, Baker moved
to New York City and helped started the Young Negroes Cooperative League,
according to Biography.com.
She started working for the NAACP in 1940, and co-founded the organization
In Friendship to fight against Jim Crow laws in 1955, the Ella
Baker Center reports. In1957, she was asked to
help organize Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership
Conference and also helped form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee, SNCC, which became one of the biggest human rights
advocates in the country. "You didn't see me on television, you
didn't see news stories about me," Baker said of her role in the civil
rights movement, the Times reports. "The kind of role that I tried to play
was to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization
might come."
Daisy Bates
Bates
was a civil rights activists best known for her work on behalf of the Little
Rock Nine. Bates and her husband founded the Arkansas State Press, a
weekly African-American newspaper that advocated for civil rights, according to
Biography.com. In 1952, Bates became the president of the NAACP's
Arkansas branch and in 1957, Bates fought for the Little Rock Nine, the nine
black students who were attending an all-white school as part of the schools
desegregation, PBS reports. Bates
escorted the students to the school amid intense opposition and heavy
threats, and continued to advocate for the students once they were enrolled, Britannica
states. She is honored by the state of
Arkansas with a state holiday on the third Monday of February.
Anna Arnold Hedgeman
Hedgeman
was an advocate who worked with religious organizations and within the
government to mobilize the civil rights movement. Hedgeman became the first
African-American graduate of Hamline University in 1922, ANB.org reports.
She later worked for a number of religious organizations, most
notably the Young Women's Christian Association, the New York
Times reports. Hedgeman also held various roles in
the government, including working on Harry S. Truman's reelection campaign in
1948 and serving in the cabinet of New York Mayor Robert F. Wagner from
1954 to 1958, the first African-American woman to do so, according to NYPL.
Hedgeman was also instrumental in the planning of the historic March on
Washington in 1963. As the Anna
Julie Cooper Center notes, "The name most often associated with
the March on Washington is that of Martin Luther King, Jr., but without
Hedgeman it is possible the final event that developed would not have
materialized."
Amelia Boynton Robinson
Boynton Robinson has been recognized for her
tireless civil rights advocacy in recent years—including a portrayal in
2014's Selma and a headline-making
photo with President Obama in 2015 on the 50th-anniversary
of the Selma to Montgomery march—but many may not know just *how* pivotal
a figure she was. Boynton Robinson began her civil rights activism in the
1930s, when she started advocating for voting rights after becoming
one of the few African-American women registered to vote in Selma,
Alabama, the Washington
Post reports. Boynton Robinson became the first
African-American woman in Alabama to run for Congress in 1964
and the following year, she helped Martin Luther King Jr. plan the march
from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama for March 7, 1965, now known as "
Bloody Sunday." Boynton Robinson and the roughly 600 demonstrators
were forcefully attack by state troopers with tear gas, billy clubs, and whips,
according to
the New York Times. Boynton Robinson was hospitalized
after the march and a horrific photo of her injuries was widely
circulated, the New York
Times reports. Later in 1965, Boynton Robinson was invited
to the White House when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights
Act, and in 1990, she received the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Medal.
Diane
Nash
Of the many accomplishments Nash has made in her lifelong
commitment to civil rights activism, her most famous contributions
include her work organizing and leading Freedom Rides and
sit-ins. Nash, who was born in Chicago, got involved with the civil rights
movement when she enrolled at Fisk University in Nashville in 1959, Makers reports. In
April 1960, she helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC), PBS reports.
Nash also coordinated the Nashville Student Movement Ride, which was part of
the Freedom Rides in 1961, coordinating between her fellow students, the media,
and the Department of Justice, according to
Yale News. She engaged in sit-ins herself, even spending time in
jail in February 1961 in solidarity with the "Rock Hill Nine," nine
students that were imprisoned after a sit-in, according to
PBS. Nash also played a crucial role in the desegregation
campaign in Birmingham in 1963, and received a Rosa Parks Award from
the SCLC along with her husband in 1965, Markers reports.
Dorothy Height
Height has been called the matriarch of the civil
rights movement who often worked outside of the public eye, according
to the Washington Post. After receiving two degrees from
New York University in the 1930s, Height worked for the New York City Welfare
Department and then became the assistant executive director of the Harlem
Y.W.C.A, the New York
Times reports. She was involved in anti-lynching protests,
brought public attention to the exploitation of African-American women working
in "slave markets," and escorted First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to the
National Council of Negro Women, a council she served on for more than 40
years, according to
the Times. In the 1950s, she lobbied
President Dwight D. Eisenhower to take an aggressive stance on
school desegregation issues. Height also worked with Martin Luther
King Jr. and she stood on the platform with as he delivered his famous
"I Have a Dream" speech in August 1963, the
Washington Post reports. For her lifelong work fighting for civil
rights, Height was awarded
the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994 by President Bill Clinton. It
was also recently announced that Height is the latest face to be honored on a
United States Postage Stamp, Ebony reports.
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| Shirley Chisholm |
Chisholm was a pioneer for African-American women
holding major roles in the government. Chisholm first served as an
educational consultant for New York City's bureau of child welfare and ran
for New York State Assembly in 1964, the New York
Times reports. In 1968, Chisholm was elected as the first
African-American Congresswoman, serving a Brooklyn district in the House of
Representatives, and later became one of the founding
members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Chisholm made history
once again in 1972 when she became the first African-American woman of a
major political party to run for the Democratic party nomination, History reports. Chisholm
died in 2005, but Shirley
Chisholm Day is celebrated on November 30 to honor her memory.
these women worth celebrating, they are worthy or emulation and i think that the government should immortalize them for future generation to know that people like them contributed positively to the development of the Nation.
credit: Marie Claire
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