Are you Marching with women? March is Women’s History Month.
Women’s History Month began as a local celebration in Santa Rosa, California. The Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women planned and executed a “Women’s History Week” celebration in 1978. The organizers selected the week of March 8 to correspond with International Women’s Day. The movement spread across the country as other communities initiated their own Women’s History Week celebrations the following year.
In 1980, a consortium of women’s groups and historians—led by the National Women’s History Project (now the National Women’ History Alliance)—successfully lobbied for national recognition. In February 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the Week of March 8th 1980 as National Women’s History Week.
But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength, and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well.
President Jimmy CarterAn excerpt of the message designating March 2–8, 1980 as National Women’s History Week.
A WEEK TO A MONTH
Subsequent Presidents continued to proclaim a National Women’s History Week in March until 1987 when Congress passed Public Law 100-9, designating March as “Women’s History Month.” Between 1988 and 1994, Congress passed additional resolutions requesting and authorizing the President to proclaim March of each year as Women’s History Month. Since 1995, each president has issued an annual proclamations designating the month of March as “Women’s History Month.”
We know throughout history that women are essential. It’s also true that men like their power and attention and they have not always recognized the importance of women; behind every successful man is usually a successful woman. Here are some highlights of American women who have led the way towards creating a society of more equal justice and opportunity.
Many know of Rosa Parks… How was she a leader of civil rights integration just by being present to the truth of it. She is know as the woman who stood up for justice by sitting down.
Here are some fabulous examples of women leaders who you may not know.
Barbara Jordan
Shirley Chisholm
Dorthy Height
Hedy Lamarr
Harriet Jacobs
An African-American abolitionist and writer whose autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, published in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent, is now considered an “American classic”
Born a slave in 1813, Edenton, NC.
To escape the intense sexual harassment and abuse from her enslaver, Dr. James Norcom, she hid for seven years in a tiny attic space (9x7x3 feet) above her grandmother’s shed, watching her children through a loophole.
After gaining her freedom, she worked as a nurse for Nathaniel Parker Willis 10, became a staunch abolitionist, and during the Civil War, she acted as a relief worker, helping Black refugees and nursing soldiers.
Rosalind Franklin
Born in London on July 25, 1920, she was a brilliant student who knew she wanted to be a scientist by age 15.
British chemist and X-ray crystallographer
Working at King’s College London, she produced high-resolution X-ray images of DNA, demonstrating it was a helical structure. Her unpublished data and image “Photo 51” were shown to James Watson and Francis Crick without her permission, guiding their 1953 model.
Early in her career, she did pioneering work on the physical chemistry of coal, helping improve fuel efficiency during WWII.
She led groundbreaking research at Birkbeck College on the structure of the Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV) and polio.
Serena Williams
Born September 26, 1981 is a retired American tennis icon widely considered one of the greatest athletes of all time.
Born in Saginaw, Michigan, she and Venus were coached by their father, Richard, on public courts in Compton, California.
She won 23 Grand Slam singles titles—the most in the Open Era—4 Olympic gold medals, and held the world No. 1 ranking for 319 weeks.
Known for her powerful game, she also won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles with her sister, Venus.
She is a Jehovah’s Witness, fluent in French, and followed a plant-based diet during her career.
