Did you know that this is Women’s Military History Week… in California. Last year, Schwarzenegger proclaimed it as such.
Which is great. Now let’s get the rest of the nation on board.
Women have a rich history and future in the military- and our women in uniform need to be recognized and saluted. Too often they are overlooked and unappreciated despite the fact that women are leaders in the military and 20 percent of new recruits are women.
Know a woman soldier or veteran? Thank her for her service.
Today is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day designed to raise awareness of the increasing impact of HIV/AIDS on women and girls.
Every 35 minutes a woman in the United States tests positive for HIV. Historically, HIV/AIDS has affected more men than women, but that is quickly changing. In the Washington Metro area women are increasingly becoming infected. Today, approximately one in four Americans living with HIV is a woman. It’s time to empower and educate yourself and those women in your life. Know your status, get tested and be safe.
We are celebrating Women’s History Month, YWM style. All month-long, we will feature women of the past and present who misbehaved and changed the history of our country as well as paved the way for future women leaders.
March 4
1998: Bulgarian athlete, Yekaterina Dafovska shocked the world when she won the women’s 15-kilometer individual biathlon at the Nagano, Japan Olympics. Although ranked 51st in the world, the 22 year-old won first gold medal by any Bulgarian in a winter Olympics.
1933: Frances Perkins is sworn in as U.S. Secretary of Labor in the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to become the first woman to serve in the cabinet of a U.S. President.
1932 – African actress and singer Miriam Makeba born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Makeba is also known for her political activism.
1917: Jeannette Rankin of Montana took her seat as the first woman elected to the House of Representatives.
1773: Frances (“The Little Bear”) Slocum is born. Slocum was a Quaker child who was taken and raised by the Miami tribe in what is now Indiana. Her burial site is a Miami Indian shrine near Peoria, Miami County, Indiana.
1781: Rebecca Gratz is born. Gratz is an educator and philanthropist.
1815: Educator and abolitionist Myrtilla Miner is born in New York.
1847: Quaker Anna Elizabeth Broomall is born. Broomall was an obstetrician and medical educator. Her entrance to the Pennsylvania Hospital as a student caused the male students to riot. She gained her M.D. in 1871.
We are celebrating Women’s History Month, YWM style. All month-long, we will feature women of the past and present who misbehaved and changed the history of our country as well as paved the way for future women leaders.
As an organization that is proud of its legacy of supporting working women and their families, Business and Professional Women’s Foundation honors trailblazing women as they lead the way in creating successful workplaces.
Don’t miss our second annual Women Misbehavin’ series.
This post concludes YWM’s recognition of unique contributions to the history of the United States.
February 27
1942 - Journalist Charlayne Hunter was born this day in Due West, South Carolina.
1902 – Marian Anderson, world-renowned opera singer, is born in Philadelphia, PA.
1872 – Charlotte E. Ray graduates from Howard Law School. She is the first African American lawyer in the U.S.
1869 – Congress adopted the 15th constitutional amendment, making it illegal for the US or any single government to deny or abridge the right to vote “on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.”
1833 – Maria W. Steward delivered one of the four speeches which confirmed her place in history as the first American-born woman to give public lectures. Stewards lectures focused on encouraging African-Americans to attain education, political rights, and public recognition for their achievements. Her speech on this day was titled “On African Rights and Liberty.”
February 28
1990 – Philip Emeagwali awarded the Gordon Bell Prize (computing’s Nobel Prize) for solving one of the twenty most difficult problems in the computing field. Emeagwali is also the creator of what is now known as the Internet.
1984 – Musician and entertainer Michael Jackson wins eight Grammy Awards. His album, “Thriller”, broke all sales records to-date, and remains one of the top-grossing albums of all time.
1932 – Richard Spikes invented/patented automatic gear shift.
1879 – Southern Blacks fled political and economic exploitation in “Exodus of 1879.” This Exodus continued for several years. One of the major leaders of the Exodus movement was a former enslaved African, Benjamin (“Pap”) Singleton.
1708 – Revolt of the enslaved in Newton, Long Island (N.Y.) and seven whites were killed. As a result, two Black enslved males and an enslved Native American were hanged, and a Black woman was burned alive.
Stay tuned for the YWM Women’s History Month series and recognition.
Everyday this month, a little-known fact about history made on this date will be featured.
February 26
1964 - The Kentucky boxing champion known to all as Cassius Clay, changed his name to Muhammad Ali as he accepted Islam. “I believe in the religion of Islam. I believe in Allah and in peace…I’m not a Christian anymore.”
1933 – Godfrey Cambridge, actor and comedian is born in New York.
1928 – Singer Antoine Dominique “Fats” Domino is born.
1920 – In 1920, Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson (1875-1950) founded “Associated Publishers.”
1884 - Congressman James E. O’Hara of North Carolina is born.
1869 - Fifteenth Amendment guaranteeing African Americans the right to vote sent to the states for ratification.
Everyday this month, a little-known fact about history made on this date will be featured.
February 25
1999 – White supremacist John King was sentenced to death by lethal injection for the dragging death of James Byrd. He was one of three white men accused of chaining Byrd to a pickup and dragging him along a Texas road until he was decapitated.
1975 – Death of Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, in Chicago. He was succeeded by his son, Wallace D. Muhammad.
1971 – President Nixon met with members of the Congressional Black Caucus and appointed a White House panel to study a list of recommendations made by the group.
1964 – Cassius Clay becomes world heavyweight boxing champion.
1948 - Martin Luther King ordained as a Baptist minister.
Everyday this month, a little-known fact about history made on this date will be featured.
February 24
1966 – Elected leader and first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, ousted in military coup while he is away on a peace mission to Vietnam.
1940 – Former world heavyweight boxing champion Jimmy Ellis was born James Albert Ellis in Louisville, Kentucky. Ellis won the World Boxing Association title after beating Jerry Quarry in April 1968.
1864 – Rebecca Lee Crumpler becomes the first black woman to receive an M.D. degree. She graduated from the New England Female Medical College. Rebecca Lee Crumpler was born in 1833. She worked from 1852-1860 as a nurse in Massachusetts.
1811 – First Bishop of the AME Church, Daniel Payne, is born. He was one of the founders of Wilberforce University in Ohio. In 1863 he became its first president, and the first African-American president of a college in the United States.
Everyday this month, a little-known fact about history made on this date will be featured.
February 23
1979 – Frank E. Peterson Jr. is named the general in the Marine Corps. He is the first African American to hold this post. He was also the first African-American Marine Corps aviator and the first African-American Marine Corps general. Peterson retired from the Marine Corps in 1988 after 38 years of service. “At the time of his retirement he was by date of aviator designation the senior ranking aviator in the U.S. Marine Corps and the United States Navy with respective titles of “Silver Hawk” and “Gray Eagle”. His date of designation as an aviator also precedes all other aviators in the U.S. Air Force and Army.
1965 – Constance Baker Motley elected Manhattan Borough president, the highest elective office held by an African American woman in a major American city.
1929 – Baseball catcher Elston Gene Howard was born in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1965, Howard signed a $70,000 contract with the NY Yankees and became the highest paid player in the history of baseball at the time.
1925 – Louis Stokes, former mayor of Detroit, Michigan, and member of the US House of Representatives, was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Stokes was the first African American elected to the House from Ohio.
1868 - William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (W.E.B. Du Bois), educator and activist, is born in Great Barrington, Mass.
Women have a rich history and future in the military- and our women in uniform need to be recognized and saluted. Too often they are overlooked and unappreciated despite the fact that women are leaders in the military and 20 percent of new recruits are women.
Know a woman soldier or veteran? Thank her for her service.
