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SPECIAL WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH EDITION
3.21.21
My Women's History Month highlighting of select achievements and milestones continues... I launch this week with an unexpected Civil Rights Movement martyr of the 5 day Selma March that began 3/21/1965—Viola Liuzzo. (to see previous Women History Month posts, click here)
WOMEN'S HISTORY THIS WEEK... | 3/21 - 3/27/21
by Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely
(click on images for further details, with a new entry added each day)
March 21, 1965: OTD after the horrors of 3/7/1965's Bloody Sunday Selma March, the second Selma March began with marchers arriving 5 days later in Montgomery, only to have that March also end on a horrible note—the murder of marcher and mother of five, Viola Liuzzo, while she drove teen marcher, Leroy Moton back to Selma.
March 23, 1985: OTD Patricia Robert Harris passed away. She was the 1st African American female U.S. ambassador in history & the 1st African-American female U.S. Cabinet member in history, appointed by Jimmy Carter as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
March 25, 1931: OTD Ida B. Wells-Barnett passed away. Born enslaved, her historic social justice/civil rights/anti-lynching work & journalism made her an ally of my uncle, William Monroe Trotter, such as meeting with President Woodrow Wilson about federal Jim Crow policies.
March 22, 1972: OTD Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment, then sent to the States for ratification. Recently, Congress removed the ratification deadline, but maybe subject to court scrutiny, incl. states trying to rescind their original ratification, while Virginia became the needed 38th state to ratify in January 2020.
March 24, 1912: OTD Dorothy Height is born. The famed president, then chair of the renowned National Council of Negro Women founded by the iconic Mary McLeod Bethune in 1935. Ms. Height received both a Congressional Gold Medal and Presidential Medal of Freedom.
March 26, 1940: OTD Nancy Pelosi was born. The 1st female Speaker of the US House of Representatives, also one of the most prolific, is now in her 4th term. She is 2nd in line to the presidency, only behind Vice President Harris. A historic first that two women hold the top two spots.
March 27, 1965: OTD Crystal Bird Fauset passed away. She was the 1st African-American woman state legislator in U.S. history. Elected on 11/8/1938 to Pennsylvania's House of Representatives from Philadelphia's primarily white 18th District, she'd resign after a year to work for FDR as an assistant state director in the acclaimed Works Progress Administration's education/recreation program. A friend of Eleanor Roosevelt's, she'd go on to serve in other public service capacities.
© 2021 Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely. All rights reserved.