In honor of Black Poetry Day, today's post shares a poem written by Litha Sovell of the Green Belt Movement in Tanzania. The holiday was enacted to celebrate Jupiter Hammon who is considered the first published black poet in the United states, born on the 17th of October 1711.
Amelia Earhart was born July 24, 1897 in Atchinson, Kansas to Edward & Amy Earhart. She saw her first plane—a biplane with double wings and built of wood, wire and oiled canvas—while attending the Iowa State Fair in 1908.
Wangari Maathai was born April 1, 1940 in a traditional mud-walled house with no electricity or running water. She was the first woman from Africa honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 and the first woman in East and Central African to earn a doctorate degree.
On July 16, 1962 aboard Vosktok 6, on a clear and sunny day, Valentina Tereshkova, nicknamed Valya, became the first woman to travel to space. She was born in Maslennikovo, Russia on March 6, 1937. She'd later be elected as deputy to the Supreme Soviet, become president of the Soviet Women’s Committee and addressed the Women’s International Democratic Federation in Helsinki where the theme of the meeting was “The Role of Women in the Modern World.”
Considered one of the greatest writers in the United States, Maya Angelou was the first African-American to work on the streetcars in San Francisco (working for the Market Street Railway Company). She was the first African-American woman to recite her poetry at a US presidential inauguration, the first African-American women to make the non-fiction bestseller’s list, the first African-American woman to have an original screenplay produced for the movie Georgia, Georgia in 1972.
