Frances Perkins was secretary of labor for the 12 years of Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency and the first woman to hold a Cabinet post. She helped forge the blueprint of legislation finally enacted as the Social Security Act.
Emily Greene Balch was a social worker, reformer, peace activist and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize of 1946. She founded the Women’s International Committee for Permanent Peace, later known as the Women’s International League for Peace of Freedom (WILPF), and was better known for her involvement in activist movements for racial justice, women’s suffrage, child labor, working conditions, fair wages, and, in particular, the pursuance of peace.
Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree around 1797 in New York to Dutch slaveowners, the Hardenberghs. Overcoming the challenges of slavery, illiteracy, poverty, prejudice, and sexism in her own lifetime, she worked for freedom, to end racism by mobilizing thousands to support the abolition of slavery and support women's suffrage.
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.
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.
