ROAR Remembers- Our Unsung SHEroes
Valentine's Day has come and gone- it was a day that we celebrated love. So today, I want to give some love, in honor of Valentine's Day and Black History Month, to a few of the Unsung SHE-roes in our history. We know of Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Oprah Winfrey, Angela Davis and many other well known historical female icons. Now, let's highlight a few women who have also etched their signatures in the fight for equality and civil rights for people of color worldwide. Please help me show some love to our SHE-roes:
1. Miriam Makeba
She was the first artist from Africa to popularize African music around the world. She is best known for the song "Pata Pata", first recorded in 1957 and released in the U.S. in 1967.
She recorded and toured with many popular artists, such as Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, and her former husband Hugh Masekela.
2. Claudette Colven
Claudette was a pioneer of the African American Civil Rights Movement. On March 2, 1955, she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in segregated Montgomery, Alabama, nine months prior to Rosa Parks. Yet, for many years, Montgomery's black leaders did not publicize Colvin's pioneering effort because she did not quite fit the image of the civil rights movement.
Not only was she young, and later had a child out of wedlock, but she was often described as "feisty", "mouthy", and "emotional", while her older counterpart Rosa Parks was viewed as being calm, well-mannered, and studious. Because of the social norms of the time and her youth, the NAACP leaders worried about using her to symbolize their boycott.
3. Daisy Bates
Bates was a complex, unconventional and largely forgotten heroine of the civil rights movement who led the charge to desegregate the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957.
4. Nanny of the Maroons
We know of Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution of the 1790s, but Jamaica’s Maroons were, in fact, the first enslaved African people to take back their freedom in the New World. Their most famous leader was the legendary Queen Nanny of the Maroons.
Nanny is known as one of the earliest leaders of slave resistance in the Americas, and one of few women in that role. She is celebrated in Jamaica and abroad. In 1976, Nanny was named Jamaica’s National Heroine, the only woman to be so honored. Her likeness graces the face of the Jamaican $500 note, the “Nanny.” Her portrait is also used as the logo of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Abolition and Resistance at Yale University.
5. Ethel Waters
Ethel, was an American blues, jazz and gospel singer and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts, but she began her career in the 1920's singing blues. Her best-known recordings include "Dinah," "Stormy Weather," "Taking a Chance on Love," "Heat Wave," "Supper Time," "Am I Blue?" and "Cabin in the Sky," as well as her version of the spiritual, "His Eye Is on the Sparrow."
Waters had a profound effect on many of the black female singers who followed her, as well as countless young aspirants; and she blazed new trails with her dramatic achievements on stage and in film. She left behind two autobiographies, His Eye Is on the Sparrow, and To Me It’s Wonderful. Her achievements were matched by her modesty; in Waters’ own words: “We are all gifted. That is our inheritance.”
6. Harriet Ann Jacobs
Harriet was an African-American writer who escaped from slavery and was later freed. She became an abolitionist speaker and reformer. She penned and published an account of her anguished life in her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Her story addresses issues that female slaves encountered such as unwanted sexual advances, rape and abuse, by the time they come of age.
Harriet was actively involved with the abolition movement before the launch of the Civil War. During the war she used her celebrity to raise money for black refugees. After the war she worked to improve the conditions of the recently-freed slaves.
7. Maggie Lena Walker
Despite her disabilities and paralysis, Maggie Lena Walker (1864-1934) didn't let anything stop her from becoming a true leader. The daughter of a former slave, she was not only a teacher and a business woman, but she was also the editor of the St. Luke Herald, the first black woman to form a bank, and the first woman of any race to be a bank president in the U.S.
She was also an active community member, and once, she even ran for governor of Virginia. A true inspiration for black Americans and women everywhere, Walker's accomplishments are astounding, especially considering she did it all decades before women's suffrage and the Civil Rights movement.
8. Dame Mary Eugenia Charles
Caribbean’s first female Prime Minister, Dame Mary Eugenia Charles, held the position in Dominica for 15 years until 1995, the longest serving female Prime Minister in world history. Before her time working in Parliament, she became the first Dominican woman to work as a lawyer. Not afraid to go toe to toe with the overbearing male politicians in her cabinet, she once arrived in a bathing suit to Parliament to make a mockery of her predecessor’s ridiculous dress code act.
Mary Eugenia Charles was knighted by Queen Elizabeth 11 at Harare, Zimbabwe in 1991, a fitting tribute to her distinguished career as lawyer, politician and journalist. She retired from the duties of Office in 1995 and very soon enrolled at the John Hopkins School of International Studies where she studied the European Union, the United States of America and Canada.
Hear them ROAR!
These women have all made contributions not only to Black history, but have also made their mark in women's history, through their relentless efforts to fight for what is right, challenge the status quo and change the perception of women of color in their respective times. Many of these SHEroes do not get the recognition they deserve so it is our duty to shine a light on these brave women! This is why we CELEBRATE them, this is why their actions EMPOWER us, and this why their stories INSPIRE all women of color within our community!
